


Living In Hearts Left Behind

by giselleslash



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, Paper Legends 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-18
Updated: 2011-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:44:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giselleslash/pseuds/giselleslash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur has been living abroad for several years, wanting to get as far away from his family and the expectations placed on him as possible, but the unexpected death of his brother brings him back home where he must confront the things that drove him away. He has to deal with the guilt of not being in his brother's life for the last few years and how much he missed because of that as well as the fact that maybe his father wasn't what he thought he was. And to make everything even more complicated there's his brother's boyfriend, Merlin, who might just be his salvation if their guilt and sadness doesn't drown them before they even get started.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living In Hearts Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank my _extremely_ talented and lovely artist, Waltzing_Mice, for being an absolute joy to collaborate with, she is a gem. And thousands and thousands of thanks go out to my beta, my gorgeous braintwin, Afra_Schatz, as well as my amazing britpicker, Ebonystar. They were both brilliant and helpful and so incredibly generous with their time. Although I, of course, can't keep well enough alone so any remaining mistakes are entirely of my own doing. I also need to give all kinds of love to Chaosmaka for being an amazing cheerleader, even though she never took on the job officially she was there to hold me up along the way.
> 
>  
> 
>  **Art link:** [BEHOLD THE LOVELY ART](http://waltzing-mice.livejournal.com/57662.html?format=light)

Arthur wasn’t exactly sure how it was he’d gotten to where he was in his life.

Alone, basically homeless (since his landlord was about to kick him out for skipping a month, or four, of rent and he’d figured he might as well preemptively move out to avoid all the hassle and shouting that was sure to occur otherwise) and standing in a cemetery at his older brother’s funeral. A lone duffel bag and guitar case, his only possessions, sitting at his feet.

How the hell did he get here?

He’d started out okay. He was a happy kid and was good at sports. The other kids seemed to like him and he always had a lot of friends. And if it wasn’t totally twatty to say so about oneself, he’d add popular to that list. One of the bright and beautiful, actually. Those kids that are so pretty it hurts, so lucky it stings and so damn full of potential it burns. Burns right off of them so strongly that you can see the heat waves coming off the burn. They’re those kids you just _know_ will make a million and succeed at whatever they want to do because despite what should be the laws of a fair and just universe there were actually people that never ever get anything less than everything.

Hm. Now that he thought about it he sounded like an enormous prick.

Maybe this was just karma and he was the designated slob having to take one for the team.

Arthur wasn’t sure he was one hundred percent okay with that.

He wanted the life that was owed him.

And that life included one with his brother in it.

He looked up at the people standing watch over Henry’s grave. It was morbid. All of it. It was also obscenely sunny. Funerals meant clouds and rain and oppressive dreariness to match the fucking oppressive pain of the people having to stand in it and say goodbye to someone they loved, or maybe even hated, who knows. But still. _Still_. Henry was owed this. The perfectly set funeral, rain clouds and all.

Arthur’s rational mind knew that his logic was all kinds of fucked up, who thought that? Who stood at his brother’s funeral and cursed the weather gods for having the nerve to bring sunshine when there should be gloom?

Not anyone normal. Not anyone with the sense god gave him.

Arthur’s mum had always told him that, that he didn’t have the sense god gave him. Well, maybe god had used up his sense quota for the day and Arthur hadn’t actually gotten any at all. And there was his mum chastising him for an accounting error on god’s part (well, probably the damn angels screwed up because clearly god was the boss up in heaven and would delegate menial tasks like that to the underlings and really, what did the angels have to do other than sing, pluck at harps, and fly from cloud to cloud?).

Arthur jumped headfirst off the top bunk. He ran with scissors. He stuck stones up his nose. He rode his bike at breakneck speed and let go of the handlebars to see if it felt the way he thought it would feel like to fly.

Henry didn’t.

He’d had all the sense in the world. All that god gave him and then some. If he was any sort of big brother, Arthur thought, he would’ve loaned some of that sense to Arthur.

Henry was sensible and a mother’s wet dream. He did what he was told, he always said please and thank you. He was a right stick in the mud.

And he was the best person Arthur had ever known.

He was good. In all the best ways, and some of the boring ways too, but truly, _truly_ good. His heart so damn big and full that Arthur never could figure out how he could keep it inside his chest. But it was a perfect fit, just like everything else about Henry.

And Arthur could have hated him. Or resented him. But dammit if he didn’t love him more than anyone else on earth. Times ten.

But here he was, watching over a hole in the ground that was filled with sunshine and sorrow and other things Arthur didn’t want to begin to think about because thinking meant acknowledging reality and he’d rather not. He’d be quite content, actually, to simply close his eyes and pretend like nothing existed outside what was going on in his mind. And in his mind he and Henry were sitting at the kitchen table sweaty from playing outside and eating the fairy cakes their mum had baked that morning and threatened them with penalty of spankings and groundings and much sitting in corners if they touched them before she deemed it fit.

He could be there, in that place, the one much more suited to this damn fucking sunshine shining all over the place. But no, he was standing right where he was. The last place on earth he’d ever want to be.

Staring at a hole.

A big, gaping hole right next to where he'd stood and said goodbye to his mother when he was seven. A hole with people huddled all around it in various stages of grief. The sniffling, the sobs, the silent tears. Or, if one was looking at Arthur, the faraway stare of a person who didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

What was proper mourning?

Was he to cry? Crumble to the ground? Hold his hand at his throat like he was choking? Choking on the tears and pain and anger that filled him so far full it was plugging up his throat.

Is that what he was supposed to do? Because he knew that it wasn’t standing off to the side, shifting from foot to foot, trying to figure out what to do with his fucking hands. Some sort of awkward dance that embarrasses other people to look at it.

He was a bad mourner and that was all there was to it. Not like he'd expected anything different, he had always been emotionally stunted in some form. He often felt he was missing something, that certain something that helped a person along and told them how to act and what to say. Arthur had always thought that everyone around him was so clever and on top of things. They always seemed to know what to do in any situation and exactly the right words to say. Henry, for example, would know just what to tell him. Henry would look at him and explain the proper emotional etiquette. He'd put his hand on Arthur's shoulder and talk to him quietly so no one else would hear or know that Arthur was floundering because Henry knew how much it irritated Arthur to be set apart. Or made to look stupid. Arthur hated to look stupid. Hated it with a passion that bordered on ridiculous.

It was irrational. He knew it. He did. He was aware that he'd often step away from situations that made him feel less than brilliant. That he'd keep quiet in conversations and appear sullen rather than unintelligent. He so often gave the wrong impression. Instead of seeing who he really was people usually walked away with the feeling that, eh, that bloke was a bit of an arsehole, wasn't he? Never said a word, must think he's better than the rest of us.

So not true.

Arthur would act brash and loud around his friends and family to hide the fact that he was slowly folding under the weight of his own insecurities. He had wanted to be so much more than he was. He'd had plans and really rather spectacular ideas of where exactly he'd be by the time he was twenty-seven; none of which bore any resemblance to his current life. Yes, he was playing guitar just as he had planned, but instead of concert halls and stadiums and well-endowed groupies he was working a corner of Bourbon Street in New Orleans hoping the tourists would be ignorant enough to believe he knew what the hell he was doing. That he was anywhere near good enough to be playing slow, sweet New Orleans blues. He'd have a guitar case full of dollar bills and change by the end of the day, sometimes enough to buy some groceries and stash away a bit in his rent jar, sometimes just enough to get really really drunk on the fantastically cheap beer and whisky you could find in dive bars off of Bourbon Street.

When he'd partnered up with a woman named Riesa, who played keyboard and could sing like she was born of another time and place, he'd made considerably more money. That woman had the blues, well and true, the deep smoky voice that spoke of sweat and sex and too many cigarettes. You just knew she was so far beyond your reach that you didn't even bother trying. She had the amazing ability to make his voice sound good when they'd pair up on a duet or two. Trouble with Riesa was she could barely keep sober, which wasn't a problem as far as their playing went. She could play coked out of her fucking skull. She could sing drunk when anyone else would be slurring their words and falling off their stools. That wasn't the problem. The real problem was the fact that she guzzled down or snorted up nearly every last dollar they made. Arthur was making shit without her so who was he to begrudge her a bit extra when she'd look at him with her tired brown eyes and ask for a just a little bit extra, baby. Just a few bucks. And Arthur would hand over those dollar bills without a second thought. He figured he'd never have had them without her so easy come, easy go, as they say.

Which would explain his tiny little bout of homelessness.

He'd told Riesa about his lack of funds as they laid in bed one night. They'd brought the house down at Le Bon Temps Roule and Riesa was just on the cusp of all out gone which meant Arthur got his brains well and properly fucked out. He was under no illusions about what it meant or who they were. None whatsoever. He and Riesa would fall into bed when they felt like it and she'd kick him out when she didn't, or he'd hit the road himself if she was already occupied with some other guy or girl that had happened into her orbit fucking blind and unawares to Hurricane Riesa. She'd promised him she'd stop borrowing money and would find a way to get him enough for rent. At least for that month. And Arthur believed in her and her good intentions but with Riesa good intentions never quite panned out so he wasn't going to plan any parties at his place any time soon.

In fact he was done with the parties full stop.

As much as he loved New Orleans he'd had enough of it and playing for change on street corners and in crowded, noisy bars when they were lucky enough to squeeze in some stage time from the other more popular performers. He'd left home for America four years prior thinking he was going to live the musician's life. Living to play, playing to live. All these grand notions about the music being enough, that he'd somehow eke out a living until he became one of those names on the liner notes of CD after CD. The name that everyone spoke and said, oh yeah, that one knows how to play the strings. But that was all some sort of crazy delusion brought on by boredom with his life at university and the fact his father called him twice a week to see if he'd, 'lined up a proper job yet.' Basically, if Arthur's being honest with himself, he ran away from home in a fit of pique like a stroppy twelve year old girl. And he masked his strop with the idea that he was something special on the guitar.

He wasn't.

He wasn't bad, or mediocre, or even average. He was good. Very good. Just not good enough. There were a lot of very goods out there and he had made the mistake of heading straight to a city that was filled to the brim with very goods topped with a healthy helping of so damn fucking phenomenal that listening to them was a religious experience. So, yeah, not a lot of room for a quite good lad from a too posh part of London, England.

And really, Arthur was fucking homesick.

He longed to be surrounded by people who sounded like him and to be out of a place where the air was so damn thick and hot you could swim through it. English weather wasn't anything to write home about but god did he long for its damp cold. It was crazy but he wanted to feel it seep into him and eat away at his bones.

He wanted to finally face himself and he felt like the only place he could do that was back home. He'd run away from everyone and himself when he took off for America and it was time to stop running.

He thought Henry could help him with all of that, that he would at least ease the transition back home. But like some fucking sick twisted fairytale at nearly the exact same moment he was going to pick up his phone to call Henry it rang instead, his brother's name lighting up his screen. He smiled to himself, prepared to give Henry an earful about psychic connections and the power of voodoo, but when he answered with one his typically inappropriate, unfailingly disgusting greetings the voice on the other end wasn't Henry sighing, 'Jesus Christ, Arthur, mouth!' but a hesitant, unfamiliar one instead.

"Um. Is this Arthur? Henry's brother?"

"Yeah, this is Arthur."

"Oh. Hi. Hello. This is Merlin?"

The voice raised at the end like the man was asking a question. Arthur wasn't sure if he was meant to know just exactly what the question was. It seemed as if Merlin was unsure whether or not he was actually Merlin and was asking Arthur to confirm it one way or the other. Like Arthur fucking knew if he was Merlin or not.

"Uh, Merlin?" Arthur asked his own question.

"Merlin. Henry's boyfriend."

Arthur felt like a right arsehole. Of course. _Merlin_.

"Merlin, yes," Arthur said. "Right. Right. Merlin. The man that makes my brother swoon."

There was a long pause on the other end. Arthur wasn't sure if he heard him.

"Yes. That's me."

The voice was low. Quiet. Very very far away, and not from physical distance alone.

"You've made him into a truly disgusting excuse of a human being," Arthur tried for teasing. "Do you know how disturbing it is to hear your brother waxing poetic and turning into a horrid sap right before your very eyes? Er, ears, rather?"

There was a faint noise at the other end. Arthur thought it sounded like a choked off attempt at polite laughter.

He didn't know what reality he was in. Everything suddenly seemed a bit off.

"Yeah, I can imagine," Merlin said at last. "Very embarrassing for you."

"Exactly. No one wants to hear about his brother's love life. At least not in verse form."

This time there was actual laughter, but a strange sounding kind.

"Henry never wrote me poetry. You lie."

"Well he turned into a troubadour of old when he'd talk about you on the phone. All he needed was a lute."

"He was...he..." Merlin's voice trailed off.

"You're speechless, I know. It's a troubling habit of his but I'm sure we can cure him of it. I bet if we..."

"Arthur!" Merlin's voice was sharp and angry, interrupting his ramble.

Arthur knew he tended to go on, but really, Merlin's tone was a bit of an overreaction.

"Henry's dead."

"What?" Arthur whispered. "What are you...? What the _fuck_ are you telling me? Why would you say that?"

"Henry died. In an accident, he..."

"You fuck," Arthur shouted. "How could you say that to me? What's wrong with you?"

"I'm sorry," Merlin said. "I'm at the hospital...your number is in his phone. I. I'm sorry."

Arthur ran his hand through his hair and sat down on his bed.

"Fuck," he whispered.

"I'm sorry," Merlin repeated.

Arthur knew he should tell Merlin not to apologize, it wasn't his fault. If anyone should apologize it should be Arthur. His shouting was uncalled for, there was no reason.

 _Damn it._

He was doing this all wrong.

"I'm sorry," Merlin said yet again.

It was then Arthur knew that Merlin wasn't saying it to him, but more for himself, for the sorrow inside of him and whatever Arthur had said to him, or would say now, wouldn't make a bloody bit of difference. None of it would matter. None of it would get through to him.

Neither one of them spoke and the silence stretched on for a long while. Arthur thought Merlin had already hung up but he could still hear his breathing on the other end of the phone. Arthur wondered how someone's breathing could sound endless and deep with sorrow. He felt, in that moment, that everything he could ever want to know or hope to know about Merlin was there in his breaths; all hushed and quiet in Arthur's ear. He gripped the phone and held it closer to his ear, Merlin's breathing his only tether to reality.

Arthur could almost stand the quiet. The nothing.

Almost.

"Please tell me you're joking. Or something. I don't know. He's not, is he?" Arthur asked.

"He is. He's gone," Merlin answered. His voice cracked on the word, gone.

There was another stretch of silence. Arthur stared into the dark of his bedroom and waited. He heard Merlin's breath hitch.

"I'm sorry," those words again. "I. I can't. I've got to go."

And Merlin hung up the phone.

Arthur didn't blame him. He didn't know what to do either.

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

Arthur looked over at the mourners. Merlin was front and center with Arthur's dad on one side and a dark-haired girl on the other. Sister, maybe?

He'd never properly met Merlin, only through pictures and the voice in the background of all of Henry's calls to him. And vice versa. But he thought Merlin might be more familiar than an ordinary stranger. Henry told him things about Merlin that made Arthur think that maybe they'd be friends, whenever it was they'd actually get to meet. Henry was besotted with him and Henry's good opinion was enough for Arthur. He'd always thought Henry was far too easy on people, far too kind and forgiving, but he was the best judge of character of anyone Arthur knew. He wouldn't have loved Merlin like he did if Merlin hadn't been worth loving. The owner of those happy shouts and bursts of laughter that came through Arthur's phone, the background to everything Henry said and did.

Arthur watched him closely. Merlin didn't once look at the coffin in front of him, he kept his eyes focused somewhere off to the left, somewhere far away from where he was right now.

Like Arthur, he wasn't crying. And he kind of wanted to ask him the reason why. Was it because he had lost contact with the here and now and was more than a bit adrift, like Arthur? Was he, too, wondering what the fuck he was supposed to be doing? Merlin shifted from foot to foot and the woman standing next to him squeezed his arm and pulled him closer to her. It was then that he looked over at Arthur, his head slowly drifting back from that far away place and over toward Arthur standing awkward and alone.

He was looking at Arthur, but not seeing him. Arthur could tell Merlin's gaze wasn't focused on him. And then it was. Like a switch being flipped his eyes lost their blur and tuned in on Arthur. He thought he saw a momentary flash of recognition. Arthur made a gesture at Merlin with his fingers, not a wave really since he was clasping his hands in front of him, but a wiggle of his fingers more like. The corner of Merlin's mouth turned up. He was holding onto the woman's hand that was on his arm and his fingers did their own little awkward wave.

But then the moment was lost and Merlin looked away again.

The woman looked over at him too, then, and must have recognized him somehow because she smiled slightly at him before turning her face into Merlin's shoulder.

When they were about to lower Henry's coffin Merlin walked away.

Arthur didn't blame him.

Afterward when everyone hugged and kissed and dispersed, Arthur's dad and their housekeeper, Irina, walked over to him. Irina clung to him, held him in familiar arms that had, over time, come to replace what he remembered of his mother's gentle, sure hold. She said over and over how happy she was he was there, as if Arthur could be anywhere else, and made rushed and overly enthusiastic comments on how lovely the service was and what a beautiful day it was. Arthur didn't have the heart to tell her he wanted the fucking skies to open up and pour down rain like they were weeping. That the fucking world should be weeping for Henry, not shining bright with sun and the sound of birds in the trees. But he kept those things inside and only nodded instead as he held her hand in his. His father only nodded at him, squeezed his shoulder with a firm hand and coughed before walking away. He stopped by Arthur's things and stared at them before reaching down to pick them up. Arthur wanted to tell him he didn't need to do that but he had a feeling it was the only thing his dad knew to do, the only focus he had. Help Arthur with his things. Yes. Nice and normal and familiar territory. Irina kept talking about the bright sky and things that didn't matter as she gripped his arm and pulled him with her as they followed his dad to the car.

Right before they got into the car the woman that was with Merlin came over and hugged Irina.

"I'm sorry but I just don't think Merlin and I will make it over to your place. He's..." her voice trailed off as she looked back over her shoulder at him. He was hunched over, arms crossed over his chest and very determinedly not looking at Henry's grave.

"Merlin just can't," she finished.

Irina patted her on the back and said, "That's fine, Morgana. We understand. Just take him home and tuck him in."

Morgana turned to Arthur and held out her hand. "I'm Morgana, Merlin's friend. You must be Arthur?"

Arthur noticed how they had that same lilt to their voices when they asked questions. He thought of Merlin's phone call and him saying, _'This is Merlin?'_ and the way it sounded so unsure.

Arthur took Morgana's hand. Smiled. Should he have smiled? He wasn't sure.

"I'm Arthur, yes. Good to meet you."

Morgana smiled back then went to help Irina into the car. Once the door was closed she gently pulled Arthur to the side.

"Not tonight, I know, because you need to be home right now, but tomorrow will you come over to Henry's flat? There are things of Henry's Merlin wants you to have." Morgana kept her eagle eye on Merlin.

He hadn't moved a muscle.

"The next day. After it happened, he- he went through Henry's things and started packing up everything. He was obsessed with getting everything in order he said. I told him it was too early and nothing needed to be decided but all he did was yell at me that Henry was gone and he wasn't coming back." Morgana brushed her fingers over her cheek. It looked white like porcelain, Arthur thought, smooth and cool. He wanted to touch her cheek as well but he didn't know why. Maybe it was because she looked lost just then. And sad for her friend and Arthur just wanted to feel that as well.

"He's not cold like that, you know," Morgana insisted as she looked up at Arthur. "He's not. He's in shock, I know he is, and I can't help him. I can't. He's just lost."

Arthur hugged her then. She made a sound of surprise, and maybe Arthur did too, but he didn't let go of her and suddenly she was holding him back. Her fingers digging into him.

"I'm lost too," he said.

Morgana nodded against his shoulder.

"Yes, I know."

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

Arthur was thankful for Morgana's invitation the next day when he woke up to Irina's face hovering above him and telling him she'd cooked him a proper breakfast. She was tugging on his blankets and telling him to get up and get his lazy bum downstairs.

It was not yet seven in the morning.

He gently pushed her hands away and assured her he'd be down shortly. Once she closed his door behind her he flopped back onto the bed and ran his fingers through his hair and over his face. He was jetlagged and felt hungover. All he'd wanted to do was sleep the day away until it was a more manageable hour. At least two or three in the afternoon. But that plan was lost to Irina's breakfast and persistent pestering.

He wasn't going to begrudge her this though. When he'd gotten up in the middle of the night to shuffle confused and bleary-eyed to the bathroom he'd spotted a light coming from downstairs. He'd gone down to find her sitting at the kitchen table and staring off into nothing. He was sure she hadn't been to bed at all. She'd probably spent the night cleaning out the hall closet or just sitting there at the table. Alone. He had gone over to her and stood behind her chair, his fingers touching the soft cotton of her dressing gown. He thought he heard her say his name quietly and he had bent over to hug her. She'd collapsed back against him for a moment and he kept his arms tight around her. Eventually she'd said, "Go to sleep, sweetheart. You must be exhausted."

As if she wasn't just as weary as him.

Weary in the heart was so much harder to fix than weary in the body.

But fastforward to this morning and she was jumping from one thing to the next, hovering over Arthur as he ate and never once sitting down or stopping herself and he was ready to get out of the house. He told her he was going out for a walk to clear his head and get over his jetlag. He didn't feel like he ought to tell her he was going to Henry's, it seemed best not to. He needn't have worried though, she was barely paying attention to him as he explained where it was he was going. She was too busy going over lists of people who'd sent cards and flowers and donations to charities Henry had loved to figure out what sort of thank you's needed to be written. She'd just mumbled something about being back for dinner and waved him off.

Once out of the house he automatically headed in the direction of Henry's flat. Bless him for finding a place so close to their childhood home and staying there for years. The entire time Arthur had spent in New Orleans was an ever changing address. He never stayed in one place longer than a few months. Henry was the opposite. He'd found his flat right after graduation and hadn't moved since. Henry's predictability made Arthur smile to himself. Steadfast with everything, including his flat.

The streets he followed were so achingly familiar, gone for four years from his sight but still ingrained in him. He'd hug a street sign if it wouldn't make him look like some sort of mental case.

Or maybe, as he got ever closer to Henry's, he wanted not to hug the street sign but hold on for dear life. Never letting go simply to avoid walking into an inanimate version of Henry. Walls, floor and a ceiling encompassing all of what was Henry's life.

The idea of it made his breath come more quickly, more shallow.

The closer he got the harder it was to breathe until he was suddenly at the entrance to Henry's building and he had to lift his finger and press the call button to be let in.

He didn't even know if he could do that much. How was he supposed to make it up the stairs?

He stood staring at the list of names;

 _Bartel, Elise_

 _Calvin, Donald_

 _Hanson, Rona_

 _Pendragon, Henry_

 _Pendragon. Henry._

 _Henry._

As he was trying to force himself to press the proper button the door opened next to him and Morgana walked out. She was wearing scrubs and her hair was in a messy knot on the top of her head.

"Oh! Arthur. Hey. I was hoping you'd be here soon. I have to go in to work but I didn't want to leave him alone. I've already taken off too many days in a row and they're being right pricks about it at the hospital."

Arthur watched Morgana's mouth as it continued to talk about an arsehole named Glen, a shrew named Caroline and a women's toilet stall with a broken handle.

"God. Sorry," she stopped suddenly. "I talk. I'm a talker. When I'm nervous, worried, happy, basically any time. Thank god Merlin's a listener otherwise I'm pretty sure we would have disowned each other by now."

"I'm a talker too," Arthur blurted out. "I mean, when I don't know what to say. Contradiction in terms, but the things I say aren't necessarily conducive to any sort of proper conversation. I tend to talk about inappropriate things like ants and condoms."

"Together?" Morgana laughed. "Because I'd like to hear that conversation. That's one I could fully get behind."

"I doubt ants use prophylactics, have you seen how many there are? Like a mini, leaf carrying invasion."

"Oh, thank god," Morgana said as she reached out and squeezed Arthur's hand between both of hers. "You're exactly what Merlin needs right now. You're going to go up there and he's going to sit in silence, but talk to him. Please. Just talk about ant condoms and ant sex, whatever you want. Just _please_ talk. He'll join in eventually, he won't be able to help himself. Especially not if there's a chance to tell you his theory about insects being sexy. Don't ask. It's a thing of his. One of his Merlin-y things that makes me despair but also makes me love him more than chocolate and that's saying something."

Arthur was pretty sure he was staring at Morgana with his mouth hanging open, but god, he was falling madly in love with her. He couldn't explain it but when he looked at her he just knew it would be instant friendship between them, that he wanted to know her. Always.

It was a comfort amidst the chaos in his mind.

"You're probably going to regret telling me I can talk to him about anything. You have no idea what lurks in the dark recesses of my mind," Arthur said.

"You're perfect for Merlin then. He loves the mental. Yet another endearing quality of his." Morgana smiled at him and he felt reassured. About, well, about everything, really. Just all of a sudden.

"Mental. Yes. Thanks ever so," he teased.

"Don't act like you don't love it."

Arthur laughed as Morgana grinned at him again.

"He'll be good for you too," she added, her eyes serious and focused straight on his. "Don't think I'm only thinking of my friend and not your brother, or _you_."

"No, I didn't think that. I -"

"I know, but still, I wanted you to know." Morgana squeezed his hand again. "Talk about Henry. Even if it hurts. _Especially_ if it hurts."

Arthur nodded. There wasn't really anything _to_ say. He knew Morgana obviously meant well, but she didn't know the potential disaster this could all be.

Morgana let go of his hands and briefly touched his cheek before she pushed him inside the building. She threw a wave back over her shoulder at him once she got to the pavement. Arthur stood in the doorway and waved back, a bit like the mental Morgana just declared him. He watched her walk down the street until she disappeared from sight. He stood in the entry for a moment or two then decided he had better let go of the door and actually enter the building properly before someone mistook him for the new doorman.

The ride up in the lift seemed interminable and far too fast at the same time.

He stopped at Henry's door. He could hear music coming from the other side. Perfect and beautiful. He placed his hand flat on the door, fingers spread, his ear right beside them as it against the smooth wood.

He closed his eyes against the ache each note drew out of him. His thumb moved against the door, back and forth, he wanted to touch each one of the notes drifting, broken, into his ear.

Arthur was startled when the music suddenly stopped. He backed away from the door but kept his hand up and knocked. When the door opened he found himself staring into a pair of eyes that spoke of everything he felt right at that moment.

And all he wanted to do was cry.

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

"I'm Arthur."

"Yes. I know."

Merlin's voice was slow and measured. Like he didn't want to give anything away.

Arthur knew the feeling. The giving away hurt because then everything was gone.

He watched the way Merlin's fingers turned white on the doorknob from gripping it so tightly.

"Did you want to come in?" Merlin asked.

"Please."

Merlin moved back to let Arthur step in.

"I'm sorry," Merlin said as he pushed boxes and piles of paper to the side. "I'm packing up Henry's- I'm packing up things. It's a mess. It's usually not a mess."

"I lived in my car for three months."

Merlin stopped and stared. Arthur knew it bordered on non sequiter but there was a point in there and he waited for Merlin to find it.

Arthur wondered if he was testing him.

"So the mess? Not so much a problem then, you being a feckless hobo and all?" Merlin asked slowly after a drawn out moment of silent staring.

Arthur made a sound like a laugh and a great release of breath all at once. A strange sound. He was suddenly happy, inexplicably proud of Merlin for some reason. Like maybe he should be given a gold star.

"Yeah. Not so much. When one's car becomes a science experiment in progress things being a mess is really a non-issue."

"Good to know," Merlin nodded as he kept picking up anyway. "When I've made my way through this manic cleaning stage and have moved on to the 'wallowing so much in my own pain that I don't bathe for days on end and wear boxers and stained shirts around the flat' stage you'll still be on the guest list."

Arthur closed the door behind him. "I'll probably join you. Sounds like a proper stage to be in. We could have a contest. See how many stacks of newspapers and takeaway cartons we can get going on in here until the health inspector checks in, or those two cleaning tarts from that show come in to clean us up and flirt with us over toilet cleaners."

"You've planned this already, have you?"

"I have. I'm efficient in my sloth."

"So do you get the really flirty one that imagines herself a bit of a cougar, or the one with glasses? I'll admit to being partial to the one with glasses. She looks like a spanker."

Arthur laughed outright at that and the sound seemed to echo through the flat. Merlin jumped at the sound, turned pale as he suddenly sat down on the edge of the chair next to him. Like his legs had just given out.

"I'm sorry," Arthur began. "That was really loud, I -"

"Do it again," Merlin said, his voice demanding.

"What?"

"Do it again. Laugh."

"I don't think..."

"Please," Merlin's voice sounded desperate. "Please laugh again. Just like that."

Merlin reached out and pulled at Arthur's arm when he only stared at him and didn't make a sound. Arthur let Merlin's fingers dig into his arm but he only shrugged, totally incapable of doing what Merlin was asking of him. He didn't know what he was supposed to do or why Merlin even wanted it.

"Please," he tried one last time, his voice a choked whisper. His grip on Arthur tightened and when Arthur shifted a bit under the hold Merlin seemed to realize what he was doing and abruptly let go. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to freak you out. I didn't mean to."

"I know," Arthur said even though he didn't. Not really.

Merlin twisted his hands in his lap and looked away from Arthur.

"Your laughs are exactly alike. Exactly."

 _Shit._

 _Shitshitshit._

Arthur knew that. Whenever he'd gotten in trouble for laughing when he shouldn't, especially in church, he'd always claimed it was Henry laughing, not him. His mum, and later on Irina, never believed him but his dad sometimes thought twice about taking a swat at Arthur's backside. He was never sure if Arthur was having him on or not.

"I should apologize to you," Arthur said. "I can't imagine how disconcerting that was."

"It wasn't." Merlin looked over at him. "It was really lovely suddenly. Like he was here, in the other room, just waiting for me to wake up from this."

"I don't think we get to wake up."

Merlin gave him a sad smile. "No, you're right. I don't think we do."

Merlin stayed sitting in his chair, staring off into nothing. Arthur sat down on the end of the couch closest to Merlin and remained quiet. He wanted to look around him and take in all of what Henry's life had been without him there. He had a feeling he wasn't going to get that privilege, that much of the knowledge was lost, as he looked around and noticed bare nails sticking out of the walls and outlines of picture frames and objects now absent in the faint layer of dust that covered some of the surfaces closest to him. He was afraid Merlin had already packed nearly all of Henry away.

He must have sighed or made some sort of noise because Merlin focused back in on him and when Arthur turned to look in his direction he noticed Merlin staring.

"You're looking for him and I've packed him all away. I'm sorry."

"All we've done so far is apologize to one another," Arthur said instead. "Rather troubling beginnings, don't you think?"

Merlin smiled to himself and pulled his feet up onto the chair. Arthur watched as his arms wrapped around his legs and he made himself so small he nearly disappeared.

"I'd say let's never say those two words again but that'd be entirely unhelpful. And then it'd become a thing, and all we'd think about were those two words until one of us gave in and just started shouting them over and over again in the middle of a restaurant or something."

"And the old lady sitting next to us drinking tea would have a fit of some sort. Tea everywhere."

"And I don't even like tea."

The frown on Merlin's face made Arthur laugh again. He nearly stopped himself, said the dreaded, _'I'm sorry'_ but Merlin looked at him and such a look of peace crossed his face that Arthur purposely laughed louder. Longer than the moment called for. Merlin relaxed his hold on his knees and Arthur felt better himself somehow.

"So you think we'll be together at restaurants to frighten old tea drinking women?" Arthur asked.

"I'd like to be. I think. I want to get to know you. He talked about you a lot."

Arthur felt a bit of pressure on his chest.

"He loved you," Merlin added.

The knowledge that Henry thought of him, that he was here with him even when he was half a world away, made Arthur feel shattered and pulled together all at the same time.

"He was the best person I ever knew," Arthur said, voice gravelly.

"I knew him my way, I want to know him your way. I always wanted to know everything about him but he never liked talking about himself. It was always about everyone else, wasn't it?"

Arthur nodded.

Yes. It always was.

Arthur looked over at Merlin. "You know, your friend Morgana said you wouldn't talk and that I was supposed to come in here and talk about ants having sex with condoms until you started talking yourself. But you're a bit of a chatterbox, aren't you?"

"Morgana worries too much. And are we talking about ants having sex _with_ condoms or ants _using_ condoms during their filthy ant orgies? Because if it's ants having sex with condoms I'd imagine it'd be quite tricky. Really more of a giant lubed up slip and slide for them, don't you think?"

Merlin looked genuinely thoughtful and concerned over the matter and it was all Arthur could do not to break down and weep because in that very moment he saw exactly why Henry had loved Merlin like he did and just how much Arthur had missed by being away. Henry was gone, his life with Merlin vanished entirely, and Arthur would never get to see just how happy Henry must have been. And more than anything Arthur wanted to see Henry happy and in love. Delirious with it. He wanted to be able to tease him, he wanted to sit down to Sunday brunch with Henry and Merlin, his dad and Irina. Arthur imagined that they would have laughed a lot and that his heart would have been full. He wanted - .

He wanted. That was it.

He just wanted Henry, full stop.

"I missed so much," Arthur said as he kept looking around the room.

Merlin nodded but didn't say anything.

"There were so many times I wanted to come home, you have no idea, but my pride. My stupid, fucking pride. I just couldn't let my dad have the satisfaction of knowing I had fucked up just like he told me I would."

Merlin frowned. "I don't think that was the case at all. I think that's the version _you_ saw."

"And you're an expert on my father? Just because Henry told you some things doesn't make it so. Hen tended to see the world through rose tinted glasses." Arthur was inexplicably angry. He'd gone from laughing with Merlin to wanting to punch him and he clenched his fists in his lap as his hands shook. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe.

Merlin didn't seem fazed by it though and answered Arthur in a quiet voice. "No, I'm not an expert. I don't pretend to be, but I know that your father loved you. Both Henry and your dad missed you and talked about you often. I don't think you knew that and I wanted to make sure you did."

Arthur's hands loosened but he still didn't know what to feel. He knew Merlin had nothing to do with it, that it was all on him and his own insecurities and issues. "I'm such a disappointment to him. My father. To both of them."

Merlin waited Arthur out, waited for him to open his eyes again and look at him.

"One night," Merlin said, "Henry and I were having dinner with Uther. Hen mentioned something about having heard from you and about some adventure of yours. He said how much he envied you your fearlessness, that he wished he could do just one wild thing in his life. One recklessly Arthur like thing."

"And every day of my life I wanted to be just half of what Henry was." Arthur saw Merlin give him a small smile.

"What Henry said made Uther smile. He said, _'yes, our Arthur is brave, isn't he?'_ He sounded very proud."

Arthur swallowed, shook his head at Merlin and said, "No. Surely you've got that wrong."

"No," Merlin sounded very sure. "I don't."

Arthur couldn't bear to look at Merlin any longer. He turned his head to the side and stared out the window instead. It seemed every step he took, every story he heard just made him that much more lost. He was drowning in it.

The silence between them stretched out even longer. Arthur didn't know what to say and Merlin just let him be. And all of that was strange as well. Usually Arthur would feel the need to fill the silence, to fill it with inane chatter or stupid jokes; things that made him seem forgettable and small. But with Merlin the silence seemed to be okay. It wasn't the kind that pained Arthur, made him feel awkward, this silence between Merlin and himself felt like a sort of waiting silence. A pause in the conversation. A thing that had a purpose, and it was okay.

With Merlin, it was okay.

"There are so many things I don't know," Arthur said finally, and he didn't know what he was referring to exactly. It could have been any one of a million things he didn't know, would never know. It could have been; I don't know my father like I thought I did, or I don't know why Henry loved me like he did, or the worst one of all, I don't know how to survive under this unbearable weight of grief and regret.

"Can we meet from time to time? For coffee or something?" Merlin asked. Arthur liked how he didn't try to tell him otherwise, that he didn't say false and empty sentiments or any of those other canned responses for times when everything went awry.

"I like coffee," Arthur answered.

"I just- I feel like we could talk. To each other. And maybe that would make him seem less far away. He's only been gone for a week and already I feel like he's fallen off the world entirely."

Arthur nodded. Swallowed. Yes, Henry seemed like he was universes away and that Arthur would never reach him.

"I'm doing my placement at UCH and have really insane hours."

"Well I have no hours at all," Arthur said.

Merlin smiled. "Can I call you when it looks like I might have some time for a break that will last longer than fifteen minutes?"

"Yeah. Yeah, please do." And Arthur really meant it. He wanted this. He needed it. He remembered what it was like when his mother died and how the world stopped and their small little family simply froze in time. For years and years until Henry and Arthur finally started to chip away at the ice and break free. Arthur always thought if he hadn't had Henry he'd still be stuck in the ice, along with his father. There was an emptiness in Uther that neither Henry nor Arthur could fill even though they tried, Henry more so than Arthur, and that was part of the reason for Arthur's break from the family all those years ago. He was just so very, very tired of seeing Henry try so hard and never getting any results. Never being acknowledged for what he was doing, all that effort and love he was putting into their father. It made Arthur angry at their father and disillusioned with life because if having someone to love you like Henry loved their father wasn't enough to pull him through then what use was there at all? And Arthur wanted to keep hating his father for breaking in that way, but maybe it was time. Maybe it was time to move on. Maybe if he let Merlin help him to not fall away into the dark like his father had done he could do good by Henry and give him what he had always thought he deserved.

Merlin looked at him and Arthur hoped he saw something intriguing, or at least worthwhile.

"I will," Merlin said quietly.

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

Arthur tried not to obsessively check his phone over the next two days but he would be lying if he said he hadn't already had it in his hand to check it, once again, when Merlin rang him and asked him to coffee.

"Arthur? It's me, Merlin."

"Yeah. Hey."

"Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you."

"It's only been two days. I'm not a girl, Merlin."

Merlin laughed. "Well I suppose not, but still, don't want to keep you pining over your phone waiting for my call."

"There was no pining," Arthur said and wished like fuck he wasn't lying about that.

"I'll let you keep your self-respect and believe that lie, shall I?" Arthur was about to protest but Merlin continued on before he could. "Look, I've got about an hour before I'm needed back and if I decide to take a nap I may never wake up again so please say you're not busy and can meet me for a coffee."

"I suppose I could act insulted by the fact that you're taking my pitifully directionless and empty life for granted and that I can just drop everything, and by everything I mean the tv remote, and go running off to meet you at a moment's notice. But I won't. I'll be pathetically grateful and say, yes and where do I meet you?"

Merlin laughed and gave him the address of a coffee shop near UCH. Arthur told him he'd get there as soon as he could and tried not to run out the door as he said it.

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

Merlin was already at a table with cup of coffee in front of him when Arthur got to the coffee shop so he went ahead and got in line to grab one for himself.

"Hey," Merlin smiled up at him when he made it over to the table after an embarrassing bit of flirting with the barista behind the counter. "Do you maybe want some alone time with Maggie because I can head back to work and let you have at it."

"Ha. Yeah. Very funny," Arthur said and rolled his eyes at Merlin's feigned innocence as he sat down at the table. "Yes, please leave me alone with the scary barista that looks like she might like to bite me."

Merlin shrugged. "Could be fun."

"Oh god, if you and Henry are into that kind of thing please don't tell me. Let me live in a world where my brother only has the most vanilla of sex. In fact, let me think the two of you never ever have sex at all."

Arthur was going to rattle on some more but abruptly stopped when he realized what he was doing. He could feel his face heating up and his chest tighten because he had momentarily forgotten that Henry wasn't there any more and maybe it wasn't the most ideal conversation to be having. He looked at Merlin and registered the surprised flicker that popped up and disappeared just as quickly in his eyes before he shook his head and waved his hand in front of him, one of those vague gestures you make when you're a bit at a loss and don't know what else to do.

"It's okay," Merlin seemed to answer Arthur's unspoken apology. "It's only been ten days and I don't know how this thing is supposed to work either."

Arthur realized he'd had his hand pressed to his stomach like it hurt, and maybe it did, it had that empty ache about it. He felt this craving for something he couldn't have and couldn't exactly name either, this foreign hunger for things that were gone and couldn't be changed.

He kept his hand on his stomach and pressed harder. Maybe it'd actually work, maybe it'd hold all his guts in. Who knew?

"I forget," Arthur said though his voice wasn't exactly working properly. "I forget sometimes."

"I do too. Yesterday," Merlin scratched the bridge of his nose, paused. "Yesterday I yelled at him from the shower to get me a towel. I did it twice, called him a twat for not leaving one on the rack, then I realized _I_ was the one that didn't leave one out because I'm the only one there now. I sat in the shower and cried for twenty minutes and was fucking late to work. Morgana had to make up some lie about a tube situation. I think she might've said there was a shooting and I was tending to the wounded. She does shit like that."

Arthur wanted to smile because he believed Morgana was exactly like that and the thought made him happy for a moment but then it turned into a strange kind of jealousy. Jealousy that Merlin got to have that type of forgetfulness, the kind that was proof of a life lived together, one of routine and familiarity. Arthur only had the memories of what it was like to be forgetful like that. He only forgot in a way that was superficial and forgettable itself. His was a type that proved only how far away he and Henry had become and that maybe he wouldn't get a call from him on a Sunday afternoon or an insulting birthday card in the mail. That's it. That's all his relationship with his brother amounted to and it broke Arthur's heart and made him angry that he couldn't yell at Henry too.

Arthur forgot, but he wanted to forget like Merlin. He wanted to accidentally talk to Henry in the middle of the afternoon, from one room over, but he didn't and he never would because for years and years they were apart and their room stretched across an ocean.

"And we never ever had sex. Ever."

Arthur looked over at Merlin to find him looking back at him with his head cocked to the side and a look of utter seriousness on his face. Arthur thought that, possibly, Merlin read minds. A mangled laugh burst out of Arthur's mouth and he covered it with the hand that wasn't still pressed against his stomach.

"Thank you," Arthur said from behind his hand.

Merlin nodded and took a drink of his coffee. They sat in silence for a few minutes and watched the people come and go. Arthur noticed that the scary barista, Maggie, was giving other customers the same frightening look she'd given Arthur. He wondered for a moment if he should feel a bit wounded that he wasn't the lone recipient of her evil flirting - slash - _'you're my next victim, haha'_ looks, it was terribly degrading to think he was only one of many. He halfway smiled to himself and watched as Merlin turned his coffee cup in his hands. Around and around and around, a slow slow spin.

"I wish there was a handbook, or a rule book. Something that gave you a how-to guide to not sticking your foot in it. I'd like that," Merlin said as he kept turning his cup.

"I'd even go out with the biting barista over there if it meant I'd get one of those."

Merlin laughed. "I think the two of you would make a lovely couple. I see a real future for you two."

"Sure, make fun of the traumatized guy. Really classy, Merlin."

"I think I'm going to have to look into the statute of limitations on claiming trauma as a defense. There's only so long you can milk it, Arthur."

Arthur smiled. Maybe he'd be okay with Merlin. He didn't seem to mind Arthur's tendencies toward awkwardness and always, _always_ , saying exactly the wrong thing. He made Arthur feel more comfortable than he had any reason to be and it made things feel just a little bit easier.

"So," Arthur said as he picked up his cup and waved it in Merlin's direction. "You're going to be a doctor."

"Yeah. Hopefully."

Arthur nodded. "You seem like an overachiever."

"Thanks," Merlin laughed.

"You look very doctorly too."

"It's the scrubs."

"Ah. Yes. Just so." Arthur nodded sagely and smiled when Merlin rolled his eyes at him. "Are you going to be a plastic surgeon then? Tit jobs and all that?"

"Of course. Why would I want to use medical knowledge for the powers of good?"

"Why indeed. And who says giving bigger tits to the world isn't working for the good of us all?"

"Only crazy people, that's who."

Arthur smiled, took another drink of his coffee and looked out the window. At all the people walking by; heads down, mobiles to their ears and just chugging away at life, and he wondered if any of them were secretly bogged down in the same kind of sadness he and Merlin were. He suddenly wanted to know, about all of them. He wanted to stand out on the pavement and ask every person that passed him by whether or not they could stand getting out of bed each morning and if they said no he'd invite them in. He'd fill the coffee shop up with pain and regret, so much of it that maybe they'd all drown each other out and it would all stop. And there'd be quiet. A blessed quiet calm.

He didn't want to be alone and maybe that was why he was so desperate to cling to Merlin. His father was quiet and distant, and Irina was too kind. Too sweet. He didn't want to bruise her. Merlin, he could bruise. And Merlin could do the same in return. They could bruise each other until they couldn't take it any more and they'd stop. Maybe then the bruises would start to fade and they'd heal. Of a sort. Or as much as they could ever hope to.

Arthur saw Merlin shift in his seat out of the corner of his eye so he looked away from the window and focused back on Merlin.

"So," he asked, "Is it like _Grey's Anatomy_ then?"

Merlin laughed, tugged on the cuffs of his hoodie and said, "That's a really crap show, you know. I should be insulted by your implications." but then went on to tell a fantastical tale of how he and Morgana had tried to carry on a torrid affair while trying not to laugh and spoil it all. There was apparently rumors of cheating, public crying fits and pregnancy scares. Arthur sat back in his chair and for the next thirty minutes forgot.

He just forgot.

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

Arthur spent the next few days alternating between waiting on Merlin's call like a stood up date and watching hours and hours of truly shite television. He was obsessed with every single show, even things he'd normally have laughed at or been truly disgusted by, he watched. He couldn't get enough. Sometimes he'd sit down and watch and watch and watch and suddenly it'd be the middle of the night and he hadn't moved for hours. Hours and hours. And it was sad and pathetic and all the things Arthur was feeling so he told himself he didn't give a fuck. He told himself that so he could continue to stare dry-eyed at the television screen. If he let himself think otherwise he'd be under the covers of his bed, weeping.

Fucking _sobbing_ for everything he'd lost and all the ways he'd messed up and ruined everything around him.

He didn't start though because he knew if he started he'd cry like a damn child, great heaving, wracking sobs that went on until he'd made himself sick and exhausted with it.

That was Arthur's problem, he never did anything by halves. Every fucking thing he did had to be overblown and overly dramatic. He could never have just a few drinks, he had to get royally pissed. He couldn't just move away from home and go off to university, he had to move away and go across an ocean. He couldn't just get a normal job and play music on the weekends, he had to tell the world to fuck off and play for a living which gave him no living at all at the end of the day.

He'd thrown himself off the edge of the damn building, just to spite everyone, and what for? What had he accomplished other than losing out on his brother and his happiness with Merlin? He'd accomplished nothing. He'd left New Orleans without making a dent, not a single ripple in the puddle. No one was any wiser, now that he was gone, that he'd even been there at all. Who was fucking Arthur Pendgragon anyway?

No one knew and no one gave a fuck.

He'd left the only people who'd known or cared who he was. He'd given them all a great big _'fuck you'_ even if he'd never said it out loud. And that hurt almost more than losing Henry, that he'd treated him like shit and had never once told him he was sorry. And now he'd never ever get the chance to fix anything, to fix one single fucking thing. Not one. It was that thought that left him virtually paralyzed every single day. He knew he should get up off his arse and _do_ something. He knew it. He did. But he just couldn't. Some days it felt physically impossible for him to stand up and walk, like his legs were fucking useless. He'd just sit on the couch and stare at the television screen until his vision blurred and every last thought left his head until there was nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

It was a relief, almost, to get to that point of not caring or giving a fuck what was going on around him. If he was in that place then the hurt went away and the guilt was pushed down into the darkest depths of himself and could be forgotten, not entirely, never entirely, but at least for a few blessed hours of nothingness.

It was in the middle of one of those trances that Merlin called a few days after they'd met for coffee.

"Yeah?" Arthur muttered into the phone, his eyes still on the telly and the cricket match he was watching. He didn't even fucking like cricket, for fuck sake.

"You sound pleasant this afternoon."

Arthur blinked at the sound of Merlin's voice and the string holding him to the television was suddenly cut and the world rushed back in around him, loud and encompassing. He wanted to curse at Merlin for breaking into his hypnotic state of not dealing, but he was so pathetically happy to hear Merlin's voice, a now familiar voice, that he pulled his feet off the couch and sat up in an effort to wake himself up and sound like a human being.

"Sorry. I was watching telly and I got a bit distracted."

"I could call back later if you want."

"No," Arthur practically shouted and he took a deep breath and repeated the word again in a relatively normal tone of voice. "No. It's fine. Don't do that. I was just watching cricket and I don't even fucking like cricket so you're doing me a favor."

"Are you sure? Because if you're just being polite and you secretly love cricket and have a bat that you sleep with every night while you dream about getting off with Kevin Pietersen I'll understand. You don't need to be ashamed, Arthur."

"Oh, shut it."

"It's okay to dream about boys, Arthur. Especially pretty, athletic ones you admire and want to be when you grow up. It doesn't make you _a gay_ ," Merlin whispered the last two words and Arthur laughed.

"Oi," Arthur protested after he got done laughing. "I'll have you know I was a gay before my repressed brother ever was."

Merlin inhaled a loud, shocked breath and Arthur rolled his eyes at the drama.

"There's a story in there, do tell. I'm intrigued."

"I kissed Philip Moriarty in a supply closet at school when I was fourteen."

"Is this a filthy boarding school boy story, because if it is I'm practically giddy."

"Your perverted imagination will have to do in this case because that's all you're getting."

"I'm disappointed in you. Hen always made you sound much more interesting than you actually are, you're a bit dullsville actually."

"And yet I managed to kiss a boy dogs years before my sexually frustrated older brother."

"Just because it took Henry a bit longer to find his inner queer doesn't make him any less fabulous."

Merlin sounded so serious that Arthur just smiled and shook his head.

"I love that you can say shit like that with a completely straight face."

"We're on the phone, Arthur, you're not privy to what my face may or may not be doing."

"Whatever. Back to my story. So I kissed Philip when I was fourteen, meanwhile Henry was trying to be all boring and hetero while dating Alice Richards, ergo, I win."

"You win the gay game?"

"Yes. I do. Hen practically married the poor girl before he realized he'd rather be giving Philip Moriarty a hand job in a supply closet than feeling up Alice's rather lovely tits."

Arthur could hear Merlin laughing softly through the phone.

"Poor Henry," Merlin said. "I can imagine his tortured existence while he tried to figure out a kind way to tell Alice he liked to suck cock. I bet he very nearly didn't go through with it at all and was on the verge of asking her to marry him in a moment of delirious panic."

"Yeah, pretty much," Arthur smiled to himself.

"That's totally Henry though, right? He would have married that girl and lived his entire life trying to make her happy while he was secretly miserable just so he wouldn't have to break her heart."

They both got quiet and Arthur got up and walked to the window. He looked out at the backyard he and Henry had spent hundreds and hundreds of hours playing in and he laid his forehead against the glass.

"He was pretty fucking pathetic," Arthur whispered. Merlin didn't respond, just stayed a steady presence on the other end of the line. "He did stupid shit like that all the time. Always thinking about everyone else but himself."

Merlin remained silent and Arthur continued to stare out the window. The glass was cool against his forehead and his breath was making clouds of condensation spread across the surface every time he exhaled. He found himself waiting for the cloud to disappear from the glass before inhaling again. He did it over and over and it wasn't until he moved his finger to write a letter 'H' in the condensation that he realized how long he and Merlin had both stayed silent.

"He deserved to be happy every fucking day of his life."

"I hope he was," Merlin whispered and Arthur could hear the sadness and the tears in his voice that he wasn't going to let spill over. Arthur could imagine Merlin swallowing them down, a determined look on his face as he did it.

Or maybe that was just Arthur's wishful thinking, hoping that Merlin would do the same thing Arthur would. It was stupid, but Arthur didn't care.

"I'm pretty sure he was, Merlin," he said as made a second 'H' on the window only to watch it disappear like the first.

Merlin sighed and Arthur thought it sounded a bit doubtful, but resigned to believe otherwise.

"Thank you," Merlin said quietly.

"You're welcome."

Arthur pushed away from the window and walked back over to the couch. It suddenly looked terribly inviting. Maybe the cricket match was still on and Arthur could go back to forgetting again. He sat down and pulled his legs up to his chest, he wrapped an arm around them and clenched the phone desperately in an attempt to not reach for the remote.

"Please tell me you're free for another coffee soon?" Arthur asked hoping he didn't sound too desperate and needy.

"Oh. Yeah. Sure, we can do coffee," Merlin stumbled on his words like he was wandering out of a daze just like Arthur was. "That's why I called in the first place until you distracted me with your latent love for cricket."

"Ha. Yes. Very funny, Merlin. I'll let you keep thinking you're clever." Arthur pushed his hand through his hair and tried to stop shaking from the relief of having something ridiculous to focus his attention on. "Same place?"

"No, I've got somewhere else. I have tomorrow afternoon off and fuck if I want to be anywhere near the hospital. I'm bloody free."

"And you're wasting your freedom on me?"

"Well who else would I waste it on?" Merlin asked, and he sounded so sincere that Arthur didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"You're - . You're just - ." Arthur found the words he wanted to say stuck in his throat unwilling to come out. How do you say, _'you're sort of amazing, thank you for sounding like you actually want to spend time with me'_ without sounding like a pathetic piece of nothing? "Thanks," he finished lamely.

Merlin didn't answer immediately and Arthur wondered just how idiotic and sad he seemed to him.

"You don't need to thank me, just come ready to tell me massive amounts of stupid Henry stories. I want to hear them all."

Arthur breathed a bit easier after that. "You too. We'll take turns telling them."

"Deal," Merlin said and Arthur was just about to say goodbye when Merlin added quietly, "You're my friend, Arthur. I think we can bypass all that awkward new acquaintance stuff, I'm pretty sure we've earned that."

Arthur swallowed, unsure whether or not he could get any words out.

"Okay," he said finally. "Yes, I think we have."

"See you tomorrow."

"Yeah, tomorrow."

When Arthur hung up the phone he reached for the remote and turned the telly off too.

That was enough of that.

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

The place Merlin had directed Arthur to was a rather dodgy looking pizza place in an even dodgier looking neighborhood. Arthur had practically tripped over some drunk passed out at the bottom of the stairs leading out of the tube. He'd stopped short and walked around him as the guy half woke up and swore at him and maybe also said something about licorice. At least Arthur was hoping it was licorice and not anything at all related to, or having to do with, the word 'lick'.

Merlin was already sitting at a rickety table when Arthur walked in. That was the second time he'd gotten there before him and Arthur thought he'd probably have to work on his promptness in the future.

"Yeah. So. Interesting choice," he said as he sat down across from Merlin.

"Didn't you ever learn not to judge a book by its cover?"

"But I'm pretty sure you can judge it by the small rodents living inside it."

Merlin rolled his eyes but laughed at Arthur anyway. "Hand to god, mate, this is the best pizza in the world. If it's not then I'll concede and admit we're sitting in a festering cesspool."

"Trust me, I've sat in much worse places than this. Much more festering, much more cesspool-y."

"I'll carry on as if you didn't say cesspool-y and ask you what kind of pizza you want."

"Well, if you'd been in some of the places I've been in you'd use the word too."

"I'll have to take your word for it." Merlin raised an eyebrow at him and Arthur could feel the waves of disbelief coming off of him and it made him smile. Merlin laughed. "Don't smile at that. It makes me feel like you doubt my convictions."

"I _do_ doubt your convictions, they're dissing _my_ convictions."

"Do you even know what the word conviction means? Not that this would be a surprise coming from a person who _makes up_ words."

"My belief in the fact that my supposed made up word is a real word _is_ my conviction."

"Whatever." Merlin just shook his head at Arthur. "Shut up and decide what you want on the pizza. I'm starving."

"Anything but mushrooms. And fruit. Who the fuck puts fruit on a pizza?"

"Fuck," Merlin moaned. "I was dying for a pineapple mushroom pizza. Ruin my dream, you twat."

Arthur laughed. "Oh, fuck you."

"I'm serious. All I wanted was a pineapple mushroom pizza but since you're some sort of high maintenance princess I'm going to have to have something boring like pepperoni."

"Yes. You will. Because I'm not even going to let you go halvesies either. I don't want to have to look at it."

Merlin snorted and hid his face behind the floppy old menu as he laughed. All Arthur could see was the top of his dark head and his shoulders shaking.

"What now?"

"Halvesies, Arthur? Really? You're too much. I love it."

"Honestly, Merlin, it's like you've never heard the English language before." Arthur tried to act affronted but Merlin had an enormously stupid smile on his face and he just couldn't do it.

"Hm. Yes. Okay, fine," Merlin said once he'd settled down enough to speak. "I'm good with everything but mushrooms and fruit as well."

Arthur just smiled. "You're a horrible person."

"I know."

"As long as you acknowledge it."

"So should we just get one of those garbage pizzas where they dump everything onto it?" Merlin asked.

"Sounds like a plan to me."

Merlin went up to the counter to order their pizza and gave Arthur another reason to disparage the restaurant. _'Self serve, Merlin? Really?'_ Merlin ignored him and shot two fingers over his shoulder. When Merlin got back to the table he told Arthur a fantastic story about Henry being tragic in the kitchen and trying to impress Merlin with a dinner that had about five metric tons of mushrooms in it.

"And on the date before we'd gone _here_ and I told him I liked everything but mushrooms when he asked what we should get on the pizza. Honest to god, his face, Arthur. It was perfect. He looked so sad."

"Like a kicked puppy?"

Merlin clapped his hands and laughed. "Yes! Yes, exactly like. It almost made me want to eat the mushrooms. Just for him."

"And Hen doesn't even like mushrooms either," Arthur said.

"I know! That's the great bit about it, he was making them for me. How adorable was that?"

"So how did he explain away totally missing the fact you'd told him straight up that you didn't like mushrooms?"

"Oh, it gets even better." Merlin squirmed around on his chair and waved his hands around in front of his face like he was preparing to take off and Arthur had to put his hand over his mouth to hide his smile. "He claims, you see, he _claims_ he was so besotted with me, that my mouth hypnotized him into some sort of lust trance or something."

"Henry did not say 'lust trance' I can tell you that right now."

"Okay, fine. So that's my interpretation of it but still," Merlin laughed at the memory and his face flushed pink with with it. "Hen claimed he was so smitten that all he did was stare at me like some sort of halfwit and heard only about a quarter of what I said because I was so beguiling."

"Beguiling, yes. That's a Henry word."

Merlin shook his head. "Yeah. That was his excuse. It was so fucking sweet I thought I was going to vomit on him."

"Nice, Merlin," Arthur interrupted but Merlin just kept on talking.

"So he hears the word 'mushroom' and instantly thinks I'm some sort of fanatical mushroom lover, like I roll around in a big pile of them I'm so in love with mushrooms, and he centers the entire dinner around it. God. It was perfect."

"It sounds delicious," Arthur teased. "Spending your whole meal picking out mushrooms."

Arthur was about to go on teasing about Henry's total lack of finesse in the kitchen and how he'd once ruined one of Irina's favorite pots by trying to boil water in it but he looked over at Merlin when he suddenly got quiet and still and saw a look of such sadness on his face that he felt it in his gut.

"It was the best meal I'd ever had," Merlin whispered as he looked down at the table and his finger absently drew patterns on the tabletop. "I was so in love with him in that moment I could hardly stand it."

Arthur twisted up his fingers in his lap and looked over Merlin's shoulder, out the window that was half obscured by a flickering neon sign, and tried not to say anything that would make Merlin feel worse. He had nothing to contribute anyway. He'd never loved anyone like that in his life. Not ever. He didn't know what it felt like, he wished he did, but how to say something like that out loud? He'd rather just let Merlin remember and hope that he'd hold onto the beauty of that moment, that feeling, rather than the sadness it pressed into him now.

"Does it - " Arthur began, then stopped for a breath before trying again. "Does it ever sometimes feel like you'll never be happy again?"

Merlin looked up at him. "Sometimes. Yes."

Arthur nodded. "I try to tune everything out. Forget. But I can't entirely and that makes it worse somehow."

"I've been trying to drown myself in work. I take shifts that I'm not assigned, I stay when they're over. Morgana thinks I'm going to kill myself with work and she physically shoves me out the door some days. She's even manhandled me into a cab." Merlin smiled faintly at the memory.

"She sounds like a bit of a hurricane."

"She's a complete harpy. And I love her. She's exactly what I need sometimes."

Arthur hummed quietly in agreement. "Sounds like."

"She cuts through all the bullshit and tells me when I'm being an arsehole. She doesn't give a fuck if she hurts my feelings or not because she knows what's best for me, you know? It's strange how she always knows. She scares people, I think, and is proud of it. But she's also extremely loving and kind. The way I'm describing her - " Merlin trailed off, laughed a bit. "She's a complete fucking psycho, yeah?"

"I can't wait to meet her again."

"I make her sound a treat, don't I?"

"I dunno," Arthur scratched the back of his neck. "She sounds sort of brilliant, actually."

"She is," Merlin nodded. "She's got such an amazing heart. The night Henry died I called her right away, she was my first call. She came to get me and took me home. Didn't say a thing to me, none of that _'it'll be alright,'_ bullshit, she just sat me down on my bed, took off my shoes for me and pushed me under the blankets. She turned off all the lights and crawled in behind me. Pulled the blankets over our heads and cried all night with me. She loved Hen to pieces."

"I was alone. When you called." Arthur wrapped his arms around himself. He didn't know where to put his hands otherwise. "That wasn't strange though. I was always alone. Didn't really have anyone to call either, most of them would've been playing a gig somewhere or too drunk to give a fuck." Arthur shook his head, looked out the window again. "Whatever. Boo hoo for me, yeah?"

"Arthur," Merlin whispered, he sounded heartbroken and Arthur hated that he'd made him sound that way. He looked back over at Merlin even though he didn't want to see what he knew he'd see in Merlin's eyes. Pity. "Arthur, I'm -." And then Merlin reached out to touch Arthur and his fingers had just brushed along his bare forearm when the teenage kid behind the counter shouted out Merlin's name.

They both jumped at the intrusion, the loudness of it, and Merlin instantly pulled back from him. He pushed his chair back so quickly it made a loud screeching noise along the floor and Arthur frowned at the sound. Merlin left him sitting at the table to go get their pizza and Arthur was glad for the momentary reprieve. The spot on his forearm that Merlin's fingers had touched burned and he didn't know why.

When Merlin brought the pizza back and set it on the table between them neither one of them bothered to eat it.

Merlin sighed. "Well I suppose I could have timed my hourly episode of crippling depression a bit better, couldn't I?"

"But that's the thing," Arthur said as he looked up at Merlin and leaned toward him. "It comes in waves; the hurt and the happiness. One minute I'm laughing at old videos of us my dad took and the next I'm pressing the stop button on the remote as fast as I can because I think that if I watch it a second longer I'll stop breathing."

"You're too kind, too forgiving," Merlin said. "Morgana would've told me to shut the hell up by now and to stop talking about myself. But you? You make it alright, like I'm not crazy and haven't just ruined a perfectly lovely night up to this point."

Arthur laughed and it was bitter and thick with disbelief. "No one has ever accused me of being too kind or too forgiving. The exact opposite, actually. I'm afraid you're going to be sorely disappointed in me, Merlin, if you think that's the way I am."

Merlin looked at Arthur and his gaze was painful. Arthur didn't know how to categorize it other than that it hurt to have Merlin look at him that way. It felt like Merlin was seeing something Arthur didn't want him to see and he wanted to look away, but he couldn't.

"What made you so sad?" Merlin finally asked when the silence between them had stretched beyond what Arthur thought he could bear.

"I think that should be fucking obvious, Merlin." Arthur didn't know why he was so angry all of a sudden. "My damn brother just died. Maybe that's it." His voice was thick with sarcasm, cruel.

"You know that's not what I meant."

"I've got to go," Arthur said as he pushed back his chair and stood. He dug around in his pockets for money and dumped whatever he had on the table.

"Arthur. Don't."

"For the pizza. I owe you." Arthur waved at the pizza with his hand. "I've got to go."

Arthur thought he could make a run for it but he heard Merlin's chair scrap along the floor as he pushed it back and followed Arthur out of the restaurant.

"Wait," Merlin called out, but Arthur didn't slow down. "Damn it, Arthur, will you fucking wait a minute?"

Arthur picked up his pace but a hand latched onto his elbow and jerked him back.

"I said wait," Merlin said as he wrapped his fingers around Arthur's arm to hold him in place.

"Don't," Arthur said and looked away.

"Don't what?"

"Don't apologize, or whatever it was you're planning to do. Just don't."

"I'm not going to apologize."

Merlin sounded like it was obvious he wasn't going to apologize, like he had no fucking reason to apologize and Arthur scowled. "Oh no, wouldn't want to apologize for being a twat."

A strangled laugh burst out of Merlin. "God. You're a fucking mess." Arthur tried to pull his arm out of Merlin's grasp but he'd dug his fingers in and wasn't about to let go anytime soon. "You're this broken thing and I should probably not bother because my life's a fucking shambles right now and I don't need this. I really don't. But you. _Fuck._ "

And then Merlin did something that shocked the hell out of Arthur, he yanked him forward and pulled him into a hug. He wrapped his arms around Arthur and held him tightly. Arthur didn't know what to do with his arms so he just let them hang at his sides but then Merlin's arms tightened even more and he shook him a bit and suddenly Arthur knew just what Merlin was thinking, _'hug me back, you stupid fuck.'_ and he nearly laughed because he was so fucking sure that's exactly what Merlin meant. He wrapped his arms around Merlin's waist and held on just as tightly as Merlin was holding him.

He couldn't remember the last time someone had held him like this, in a proper hug. He wondered if anyone ever had at all. He couldn't remember if they did.

"I'm so fucking sorry you were alone that night I called," Merlin whispered. "So fucking sorry. You've no idea."

Arthur squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath because he was sure he'd start crying right there on the damn pavement otherwise. "I thought you weren't going to apologize, you liar," he said, his voice far too hoarse for his liking.

"And I'm not. Not for the thing you thought I was going to apologize for, that I don't need to."

"Do you even know what you're talking about right now, Merlin?" Arthur tried for levity but his voice was still betraying him.

"I know exactly what I'm saying," Merlin said as he slowly pulled back from Arthur. He kept his hands on Arthur's arms as he looked him in the eyes. "And you will too. We'll get there, the two of us. Eventually."

Merlin gave him a hopeful smile, small but hopeful and Arthur nodded and smiled back. He really hoped Merlin had it right. He needed Merlin more than he knew how to say. Merlin gave Arthur's arms another good squeeze before letting go.

"I really am a sad, fucking mess," Arthur said.

"I know. That's why I didn't apologize."

"Prick."

Merlin half grinned at the insult but his face turned serious when he spoke again. "Yes, you're a mess, but messes can be cleaned. But you're not sad, Arthur. Not sad in the way you mean it, like you're pathetic. You're sad in the heart. There's nothing to be ashamed about, being sad in the heart."

And there it was again. Merlin seeing right through him and finding all these things about him that Arthur didn't want to be fucking found, but somehow when Merlin did find them and brought them out into the light they didn't seem nearly as insurmountable as they did before.

Arthur ran a hand through his hair. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Make me feel fucking hopeful. I dunno. I should probably hate you for that."

"That's fine. Hate me. Doesn't mean I'll leave you alone though."

Arthur stopped himself from saying, _'oh god, please. please mean that.'_

"I'm imagining this is your inner-Morgana coming out," he said instead.

Merlin laughed. "Yeah. My inner-Morgana. I'm going to tell her that. She'll be so proud."

Arthur shook his head. "Fuck. What was this night? I think our relationship needs to go on meds."

"Oh god, yes. We're going to have a rough go of it, the two of us," Merlin laughed. And he sounded like the very thought of their future potential disasters was brilliant.

"You're fucked in the head, Merlin," Arthur said as they started walking toward the tube.

And he couldn't have been happier about it.

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

For the next several months Arthur felt like a victim of Operation Sad Sack Arthur. When he told the name to Merlin he'd laughed then made a bit of an aww'ing like sound that Arthur wasn't quite sure how to take. He imagined Merlin making a pained frown along with the noise, sort of like what one would do if they were looking at a kitten that'd been left out in the rain; oh so cute but still a pathetic little thing. He alternated between feeling like the biggest loser ever to walk the earth and a bit of a lucky arsehole at the same time. He appeared to be Merlin's new project (and Morgana's too, by extension) and he felt himself basking a bit in the light of their combined efforts and attention. On the other hand, he wasn't quite sure if Merlin's somewhat tunnel-like focus on him was the result of actually wanting to help him or just some manic manifestation of his grief that he didn't know what else to do with.

Arthur decided he didn't particularly care one way or the other because he got to spend more time with Merlin, and Morgana as well, and at least he was out of the fucking too quiet house.

Irina still fluttered about him in a flurry of motion and hugs and plates and plates of food, but there was such sadness in her eyes when Arthur took the time to really look into them that it only made his own heart heavier. She had loved them both like a mother when their own had died and Uther was distant and unreachable. She was the center of their world for years and years. Every hurt or sorrow or pain was brought to Irina and she'd kiss it better and hug them until all they felt was love and when all of that was done they got sat down in front of a plate of biscuits and a glass of milk. So Irina had been their rock and the one that made things right again and as much as it pained Arthur to admit it he had no idea how to do the same for her. He wanted to give her milk and biscuits and hugs that cured all ills, but he didn't know how to do it in a way that wasn't anything other than horrifically awkward. Instead he let her fuss over him just as she'd always done as he sat there feeling miserable and inadequate.

And his father. God, his fucking father. He was as silent as the grave, no sick pun intended. He moved through the house without making a sound and most of the time Arthur was left wondering if he'd even been there at all. Uther stayed at work until ungodly hours and when he'd come home he'd lock himself up in his home office. His presence permeated the house with sorrow when he was there and his absence made the house feel empty and dark, forgotten, when he wasn't. Neither choice was a comfort to anyone, both were oppressive and suffocating. All Arthur thought about when he was at home was leaving it and being somewhere else, but at the same time the weight of the house pulled down on him so surely that he didn't think he could leave it at times. The front door seemed miles away and every step toward it only made it creep that much further away.

Arthur wasn't sure if he was going crazy, grieving, or falling into a depression that would leave him stranded alone out in the middle of nowhere. When his mother had died he'd grieved as a child; with nights of sobbing, days of demanding she come back and confusion that could be explained and set right by the adults he trusted. Whatever Irina or his teachers at school told him, he believed. Why wouldn't he? They were grown-ups and they knew everything. They had answers for every question Arthur had ever asked so why would he doubt them now? So he grieved for his mother and missed her but he still went to school and played and laughed because Irina had told him his mother was watching him from the clouds and would love nothing more than to see him play his little heart out.

And that's what he did. He played and played and grew up because that's what his mother wanted to watch him do and there was nothing on earth that could have stopped him from doing whatever he'd been told would make his mother happy. He'd remembered her sweet smile, her laugh that sounded like the tinkling wind chimes she'd hung outside the kitchen window, that she'd smelled like strawberry candy, and that he loved her. He loved her whether she was walking beside him holding his hand or whether she was walking up there on all those fluffy clouds, and wouldn't Arthur have loved to walk barefoot on those fluffy clouds too? It hadn't mattered, he was sure of his love and he was sure of hers and that was all he'd needed.

With Henry it was so different as to be unrecognizable. His grief for Henry was adult and unknown and so very dark that it was likely to eat him alive. Yes, there were still people there telling him it would get better but the difference now was he didn't fucking believe them at all. How would they know what went on in his heart? How did they know the place Henry held inside him? He was grown-up now and long, long past the days when he thought adults knew everything and was thoroughly engulfed by the frightening knowledge that they knew nothing at all. Adults lied and pretended and he no longer trusted them to make everything okay. So now he was left to grieve as an adult, lost in that strange fog of confusion and pain and longing, wanting answers that would never, ever come.

Merlin and Morgana became his only outlet, the only escape. They would go to parks and restaurants and cinemas where Merlin and Morgana carried on a running commentary on the film that was always more entertaining than the films themselves. They went to see films where one or the other held an irrational hatred for one of the actors, they claimed it made it more fun. The days when they weren't at the hospital they usually spent with Arthur. He thought more than once that they were cracked in the head, but it helped. They were a chaotic flurry around him and he found the darkness and weight lifting for hours at a time when he was with them.

They had such crazy work schedules that sometimes Arthur would find himself alone with Morgana and without Merlin there she became more quiet and calm and Arthur soon found out that all those _things_ , all those things they were doing together were orchestrated by Morgana. She tried with everything in her to take Merlin's mind off of things and if Arthur got caught up in her plans then all the better. But when it was just the two of them and Merlin was pulling away, doing one of his crazy double shifts at the hospital, they'd still gravitate toward each other and talk about things neither one felt they could around Merlin.

They tended to walk along the Thames, thoughtful and serious in ways that Arthur found suited Morgana. When she laughed she cackled and sometimes snorted, when she talked it was fast and witty, sharp and biting, and her beauty was sometimes blinding, but when they walked together she was soft and gentle. She would tuck her hand into the crook of Arthur's arm and they'd walk. She would ask him about his brother and about his life in New Orleans and he found himself telling her things he'd kept long hidden. She never judged him and never interrupted and sometimes he'd turn and look at her and see that she'd been crying, silent tears running down her face as she kept close to his side. Sometimes he let her be and other times he'd ask why she was crying. She'd shrug sometimes and Arthur took that as her answer, somehow not needing to know and being okay with it, or she'd say something that would make Arthur reach over and give her hand a squeeze. That small hand that was always settled in the crook of his arm.

She'd tell him she missed Henry, she worried about Merlin, she was so glad Arthur had come home and was there walking beside her and sometimes she'd say she didn't know why she was crying, just that what Arthur had been saying was beautiful and sometimes beautiful things made her cry.

Arthur loved her in those moments.

And he would have liked to have told her so, but was afraid to say anything of the kind out loud. It was a combination of never having loved someone in that way, like a friend but more deeply even, and worrying that if he said it it would make her cry. Or maybe it was the worry that it _wouldn't_ make her cry that stopped him, that it wouldn't be quite beautiful enough to make that faraway smile cross her face. But all of that worry inside him made him love her more because somehow that proved she was worth it, was worth the worry because the payoff was her hand on his arm and her soft words in his ear. In another life he thought he might have loved her as he would a lover, passionate and all consuming. When he'd look at her sometimes and be struck anew by her terrible beauty he'd think about how hard and fast he would have fallen. How deeply. And that he would have ripped his heart out of his chest for her love. But thankfully in this life the love he held for her wasn't meant to be that way, it was softened by his grief, tamed maybe. As they walked along the river she brought him peace instead of desperation and he was thankful for it. He didn't know if he could ever tell her how much. But a calmer love it was, perhaps no less deep than the other but in a different way, a safer way, because Arthur found that as his heart slowly unfurled in his chest he felt as if it were reaching for something else. Something close but not yet his and it waited in hope for its coming.

"Merlin adores you," Morgana said as the two of them sat on a bench and watched the river flowing past them. She had wanted them to sit because there were ducks nearby and she loved how they waddled about. She had wanted to feed them but could only find gum and mints in her purse and luckily Arthur was able to persuade her that ducks probably weren't the best gum chewers in the world.

"I think I adore him," Arthur answered.

"Of course you do, everyone does. That's the awful thing about him. He's utterly ridiculous and at first you think, oh fuck me, he's one of _those_ , those god awful nice people that everyone loves and you try to make yourself hate because who in the fucking hell is that nice naturally? You plot in your head all the secretly sinister things they must be because they _have_ to be otherwise what does that make you? A fucking horrid person, that's what. But then in the end you find out the bastard really is that nice and you find yourself falling in love too and it's fucking soul crushing."

"Because you still kind of want to kick them in the bollocks?"

Morgana laughed and stuck her fingers into Arthur's side. "Yes. Exactly. The first few months I knew Merlin I wanted to poison him in his sleep, he was just so damn Merlin-y and he made me feel like an utter cunt, which I obviously was plotting his death by arsenic or whatever, but then he just kept smiling at me and I gave up."

"Bastard wore you down."

"God did he ever."

Arthur watched Morgana as she leaned forward and tried to get the ducks to come over to them without the enticement of food. She was clapping her hands softly and saying _'here duckies, here duckies'_ in a singsong tone and Arthur just laughed and reached out to run his hand over the top of her head. He couldn't not touch her in that moment, his fondness for her was practically bursting out of him. She turned and looked up at him and reached back to grab his hand. She brought it up to her lips and kissed the back of it. She kept hold of it as she sat back on the bench and pulled her feet up.

"That's why I loved you from the start," she said as she leaned against his side all scrunched up on the bench and trapping his hand between her hands and bent knees. "There's horribleness in you, selfishness, I could see it right away. It made you incredibly easy to love."

Arthur sighed and sank down into her, collapsed against her side. "You make me sound wretched. I don't know why you'd think you could love me."

"But that's my point, Arthur, broken things are easy to love, they're broken and imperfect and you know you can be the same. All my broken pieces reached out to yours."

"And lived happily ever after... in an asylum," Arthur joked.

Morgana squeezed his hand tighter. "It's in our doom and gloom nature to think of ourselves as unlovable and you have piles of it simmering inside of you. It comes off of you in curls of smoke sometimes, but I see that and my heart opens up to you all the more. You're so fucked up and I think you're marvelous."

Arthur swallowed, he didn't know what to say, not that he ever did, but all he could do was nearly crush Morgana's hands in his and hope she understood. He tried to look at her but the late day sun was making her glow golden and the slight breeze was just barely lifting her hair off her shoulders, a strand here and there breaking free and floating around her face, and he couldn't stand it. He had to look past her. He managed to croak out her name as he pressed a kiss to the middle of her forehead and she yanked on his arm a bit, gave it a good shake.

"I know you love me too. You can't help yourself, you silly twat."

And just like that she diffused the moment and made Arthur's constipated emotional theatrics okay.

"Of course I do, you bitch," Arthur managed to get out as he blushed and looked away from her, a smiled plastered across his face. It wasn't much but it was the best he could do, it was the best he'd done in a long, long time.

And Morgana took it in and let it be what it was and didn't ask a thing of him.

"I still think the ducks would like some mints. I'll give you the whole gum thing, but mints? I fucking disagree."

Arthur laughed and Morgana smiled at him as she reached over and brushed the fringe out of his eyes.

"God, you and Merlin with the hair."

"My hair's fine," Arthur laughingly protested.

"If you say so."

"Oh, fuck off."

Morgana laughed at him and laid her head on his shoulder as she kept trying to lure ducks over with a point of her toes and they let the day run out on them.

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

Arthur ended up back at home in an uncharacteristically good mood after his afternoon with Morgana and he really wanted to call Merlin. He wondered if maybe he texted him he'd call back when he had a break. Arthur never knew when Merlin would get back to him, there had been times over the last couple of months when Merlin had called him in the middle of the night and then had been shocked to realize it was three in the morning and Arthur was doing something foolish like sleeping. He'd apologize for waking Arthur up but it never sounded anywhere near sincere because the next thing out of his mouth would be, _'well, now that you're up, talk to me already.'_

Arthur never minded those late night calls. And anyway, even if he did tell Merlin he'd been asleep, or Merlin had assumed he had been, he usually wasn't. He was usually wide awake and staring through the dark, his eyes long since adjusted to the lack of light, waiting for things to somehow change. For answers to questions to suddenly appear or for the gentle easing of the weight on his heart to begin. He also never told Merlin that he sometimes wished Merlin would always call him like that, in the middle of the night, because lying in bed with his phone to his ear, hearing only Merlin's voice, was a little bit like a dream. Those conversations that were stuck somewhere between the dead of night and the turning over of morning were some of the most truthful of Arthur's life.

He opened up to Merlin just like he opened up to Morgana. He often teased them both that he ought to pay them for the therapy they were both dishing out and all the time they spent with him. Morgana had laughed and said she was keeping track and would bill him later. Merlin had reacted strangely; he'd blushed and muttered something about liking to spend time with Arthur, that knowing he'd see Arthur made the days bearable, and then he leaned in and brushed a quick kiss across Arthur's cheek. Arthur had been too stunned to respond properly but it hadn't mattered because Merlin started rambling on about an old woman who was one of his patients and who pinched his backside every time he visited her room to check up on her. The only indication Merlin had given that the kiss had actually happened was when he saw Arthur touching his cheek after he was done nattering on about his patient and he'd reached out and brushed Arthur's fingers away from his cheek. He'd carried on with another outlandish story after that but Arthur was left wondering if he'd done it to brush the kiss away or to simply move Arthur's fingers so the moment could pass. Arthur didn't care either way, he'd already stored it away someplace safe.

Sometimes Arthur worried whether or not he was using Merlin as a substitute for Henry. At times he thought that maybe he was forcing Merlin to take on that place Arthur held for Henry in his head and in his heart. And he didn't want that. He wanted Merlin to stand on his own merits because Merlin deserved that. He was his own unique person and was actually nothing like Henry. Arthur knew he was doing a disservice to them both by thinking of him as anything other than Merlin. Just as he was. Cracked in the head and funny and kind and a voice that rang out in his head in the middle of the night and made the sleep come easier. It was like he unburdened himself and was able to find enough peace to sleep. He'd made the mistake of telling Merlin that night. He'd tried for a compliment but ended up fucking it up.

"You put me to sleep," he burst out suddenly. He instantly cringed because he heard the sentence in his head as he said it but couldn't stop.

"Am I that fucking boring?" Merlin laughed. "Wow. Thanks ever so. You really do know how to turn a guy's head. Good fucking thing I'm sitting down or I'd have swooned to the floor by now."

"I didn't mean it like that," Arthur said. "I meant something else."

"Oh, something else, maybe something else where I don't put you to fucking sleep?"

Arthur knew Merlin was teasing him but he couldn't stop himself from trying to explain.

"No. Well, yes, something other than that, but what I meant to say was that I can sleep after I talk to you. Like I can finally find the perfect spot and close my eyes and actually sleep. I don't sleep well otherwise."

Merlin was quiet for a moment then a soft, "I know, Arthur. I know what you meant."

"Everything comes out the wrong way when I try to say something nice."

"Thank god you hardly ever do then. Lucky for you you're a total douchebag."

Arthur laughed, low and heavy with comfort. "Never has being an arsehole worked so well to anyone's advantage."

"Arthur." Merlin said it so quietly and Arthur loved the sound of it. He didn't know why but it was like his name sounded more solid, more real, coming out of Merlin's mouth. "You're so. You." Merlin stumbled over his words, sighed. "You're more than you know. That's all."

"You too," Arthur said.

"No," Merlin began, "you need to know it. You really do. You're kind of wonderful and I call you not because I want to but because I need to, well, I do want to but I need to as well. I struggle so much through my day and sometimes I just need to hear your voice and know what you're doing, even though you're usually doing the stupidest, most inane shit I still need to know. It's like the only way I can get my bearings."

"Merlin."

"You put me to sleep too, Arthur," Merlin interrupted, clearly flustered and not knowing just how their conversation had gotten to this point. "That's all I wanted to say. You put me to sleep too."

Arthur felt his chest constrict and he just really, really wanted to see Merlin's face in that moment.

"Meet me," Merlin said, breaking into his thoughts like he could read them and knew that was exactly what Arthur wanted most in the world right then.

"It's the middle of the night."

"Don't act like that matters to you. I've been at work for thirty-six hours and I can't go home. I'm so tired, Arthur, but I can't stop. Please. I need to talk to you. And I need to see you as I do it."

Arthur couldn't do anything but ask, "Where?" and promise he'd be there as soon as he could. Merlin mumbled something about their bench and Arthur knew just where he meant. The park bench that their arses had probably worn grooves into over the last few months. The park was close enough to Merlin's hospital that he could run over there between shifts or on extended breaks. They'd spent hours there talking and people watching. Merlin loved to make up imaginary lives for the people they saw walking by, or if they were with someone he and Arthur would make up their conversations. If Arthur and Merlin were to be believed it was clear that section of London was populated with the most mentally unstable people in Great Britain.

 _'That one there,'_ Merlin would say. _'That one weaves doll blankets out of the cat hair she collects from her thirty-seven cats. They're mostly feral but she lures them to her with food and when they're eating she covertly collects fur.'_ And Arthur would laugh and wonder what went on inside Merlin's head. He'd give Merlin a pained look, like he couldn't believe Merlin was so mental, and Merlin would shrug and say, _'I've got more. We've only just scratched the surface, Arthur. Keep up.'_ Arthur would usually be crying with laughter by the time they were through, and oddly, would feel a weird sense of accomplishment as well because whenever he'd come up with a particularly distressing or disturbing imaginary scenario Merlin would get really excited and start clapping. Like Arthur had just performed some kind of amazing trick. It made Arthur roll his eyes whenever Merlin would do it but he found himself digging into the depths of his weird to pull out anything and everything that would make Merlin respond that way.

After Merlin had asked to meet him Arthur found himself rushing to get dressed and out the door. He snagged his father's car keys on the way out. There was something in him telling him this night was different. All those other times Merlin had called they'd stuck to their phones, only their voices connecting through the dark, but suddenly tonight there was an urgency to the moment. Arthur had felt an unbearable need to see Merlin and apparently Merlin had felt it too. As he drove to the park he was thankful for the time and the fact that the streets were actually navigable and not crowded with the typical London traffic. He got to the park in record time and found Merlin already sitting on the bench, curled into himself and hunched over. It looked like he was in unimaginable pain and Arthur didn't know what to do other than run over to him.

"Merlin." His voice sounded breathless and sort of desperate in his ears.

Merlin looked up at him, his eyes unbelievably huge in the dim light of the park. "Arthur," Merlin gasped as he reached out and snatched Arthur's hand, his fingers digging into Arthur like claws. "I just. I. It's getting worse." Merlin was barely getting his words out. "I can't breathe."

Arthur squeezed Merlin's hand as panic set in. What was he supposed to do? Merlin was the fucking doctor now, wasn't he? He was the one that was supposed to be telling Arthur what to do, not placing his fucking life in Arthur's incompetent hands. "Merlin, I don't -. How can I help you?"

Merlin staggered to his feet. "I just need to lie down, I think. Here." He pointed at the grass behind the bench as he dragged Arthur back around it and down to the ground. "Just lie down. On your back." Arthur did as he was told. "Hold onto me, okay?" Merlin's grip on Arthur's hand tightened even more.

"Yeah. Okay." Arthur nodded and looked over at Merlin who was flat on his back beside him, eyes looking up at the sky as he struggled to take deeper and deeper breaths. "Just keep breathing, alright?"

"What are you, my fucking birthing coach?" Merlin tried to joke, but his half laugh came out like a desperate choking sound and he turned into Arthur and pressed his face into his shoulder as a long, painful cry suddenly filled Arthur's ears. He'd never heard anything so painful and raw before and it took him a while to realize it was coming from Merlin, the realization delayed and slow, and Arthur felt his throat close up on him. Merlin curled up against his side and wrapped his arms around Arthur's right arm and sobbed into shoulder. Merlin was shaking with the sobs and Arthur looked up into the night sky and thought if he could only pray. If he could fucking pray then maybe Merlin would be okay, like some divine intervention or something. Anything. He'd take anything to stop Merlin's keening, the pain of it blistered Arthur's ears.

Arthur didn't think he could take it any more. Merlin was choking and struggling for air, he couldn't seem to calm himself, and Arthur moaned as he wrapped himself around Merlin. He turned to his side as well and hooked his leg over Merlin's hip, flattened his palm against the center of Merlin's back and held on like their fucking lives depended on it. Merlin felt slight in his arms, bony, and cold, but his scrubs were soft and well worn under Arthur's palm. Merlin felt as if he were shrinking in Arthur's arms and he hated the feeling, that Merlin was quickly disappearing, and Arthur was desperate to hold onto him. He might have held onto him too tightly because suddenly Merlin was gasping like he couldn't get air. Arthur lessened his hold slightly.

"No. Don't. Tighter," Merlin demanded.

"Your breathing," Arthur faltered over his words.

"Don't fucking let go of me, Arthur. Please."

Merlin let go of his arm with one of his hands and twisted his fingers up in Arthur's shirt. He tugged, over and over like he couldn't get Arthur close enough but Arthur had no idea how he could be any closer without sinking down into Merlin, disappearing inside of him until he was completely dissolved, vanished, only alive as a part of Merlin. And the thought of it. God. The thought of it made Arthur press closer, he wanted it. If they could just melt together and become one mangled creature then maybe they'd be okay. Maybe they could function and maybe the world would be normal. No one needed to know it took two of them to make it work; they'd look normal, like Merlin, and no one would ever know that Arthur was churning around inside of him.

As Merlin held onto him and his crying slowed and his breath evened out, Arthur felt a certain clarity. He'd been fumbling through life for a very long time; he'd felt lost, afraid, and alone. Very, very alone. And now he didn't. It was as simple as that. At that moment, in the middle of the night lying on the ground in a fucking park, he realized that if he could just settle down into Merlin he'd finally find a place to keep safe and warm. It was clear and endless like the black sky above them. Arthur felt, for a moment, a beautiful relief; a moment of true silence and calm until the reality came crashing down on him obliterating it all.

He loved Merlin.

He fucking loved him as sure as he could pull breath into his fucking lungs and it was the most monumentally fucked up thing he'd ever done. Again his utter selfishness took control and let him fall in love with Henry's boyfriend. His own brother's boyfriend; a man who had just shook with sobs from missing him, Arthur had held onto him and fallen in love when Merlin was his most vulnerable and unaware. He'd let himself crack apart in front of Arthur and he'd put all of his trust into him and fuck. _Fuck_.

Arthur closed his eyes against the reality of the situation. Loving Merlin as anything more than a friend wasn't an option, even if he was the only person in the entire world Arthur thought he could stand to be with every hour of the day, the only person he was willing to lay himself open to, it wasn't possible. It couldn't be. Arthur's bones ached with the thought but he kept holding onto Merlin and hoped beyond anything that what they had in that moment would be good enough.

Merlin finally started to settle, to breathe normally, and he pulled away from Arthur slightly.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"For what?" Arthur pushed the hair back from his forehead then brushed the backs of his hands along Merlin's cheeks to wipe away the leftover tears.

"For freaking you out, first off. I saw your face, there was terror there, pure and alarming." Merlin smiled faintly.

Arthur smiled back. "True, you went a bit barmy there for a minute but I always knew you were an overly dramatic sort."

"That's why we're such good friends, you're nowhere near normal either."

"And thank god for that, fuck, who wants to be normal?"

"Henry," Merlin said so quietly Arthur almost didn't hear him. "He was normal."

"So normal it hurt," Arthur agreed. "Normal to the point of boring sometimes, let's be fair here. I know you shouldn't speak ill of the dead but my brother wasn't exactly Mr. Excitement."

"But he was kind and reliable and sometimes that matters more."

"I always thought so too. I always thought I didn't want to be like him, boring and dull and everything a person was _supposed_ to be so I tried to be the opposite of him. In every way. It wasn't until I was a complete and total twat that I realized that it was okay to be dull and boring, it saved you from hurting everyone around you."

"Henry told me once that you were the most generous and loving person he knew but the problem was you hadn't figured that out yourself yet."

"Hen was a liar." Arthur said it and hoped it was true because he couldn't bear the alternative, that his brother had really believed that of him, it made all the things he'd done even more disappointing.

"You know he wasn't," Merlin said. "And knowing you now like I do, I believe him. You just don't know, Arthur, you really don't."

"You're just as delusional as he was apparently."

Merlin shook his head. "No. I know what you are."

Arthur left it at that, he couldn't say anything in response. It was things like that that made him love Merlin more than he should. He had this confounding misplaced belief in him and it was messing with Arthur's equilibrium.

Merlin seemed to sense Arthur was uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation so he pulled enough away from Arthur that they could untangle themselves and lie on their backs once again. He kept his fingers twisted between Arthur's though and it made Arthur embarrassingly grateful.

"I was going to leave him," Merlin said quietly.

Arthur turned his head to look over at Merlin who had his gaze still fixed on the night sky above them. "What?"

"Leave him," Merlin repeated. "Henry." As if Arthur didn't know. "The night he died I was going to talk to him about it; about taking time apart from one another. I had it all planned out and I was mad. I was so fucking mad because he was supposed to be home by seven and it was going on nine and he still wasn't back. I was pissed off because he was messing with all of my plans. I didn't know how to do it otherwise. He would've looked at me with those eyes and asked me why, so calm, like he always was, just wanting to know and I knew I'd go insane. I'd lose every ounce of control I had if he was all rational and fucking hell, Arthur, by the time the phone rang I hated him. I hated him so bloody much and then I answered the phone and he was gone and for a minute I was relieved. I was fucking happy, Arthur. I was glad I didn't have to be the one to hurt him. What kind of person thinks that? What kind of person does that make me?"

Merlin's voice cracked on the last word and Arthur was too stunned to respond. Not because he was angry with Merlin or even agreed with him but because Merlin had never let on. They'd been talking for months, sharing everything - or at least Arthur thought they had been - and now he found out something so huge. He didn't know what he should say.

"Why didn't you tell me?" was all he managed to get out.

"I don't know. It's such a horrible thing to know, to have pressing at my chest and I didn't want you to know that about me. I didn't want you to hate me."

"I don't think I could hate you."

"Arthur. Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't make it okay. I was _relieved_ , for one horrible moment I was relieved that your brother was dead."

"You keep saying relieved and I don't think you mean that word at all, it's just the closest word you can grab onto to describe what you felt. It's not." Arthur stopped talking and squeezed Merlin's hand. "You're not a bad person, you must know that."

"But I don't. Not always. I kept it from you because it breaks me apart every time I think about it and then this thing, this thing between us is so tangled up. Sometimes I feel -. I don't know what. So often I find myself not wanting you to think poorly of me. It eats at me, that you could walk away and leave me stranded. It makes me confused and angry. I have friends and family, Morgana is almost like my sister, and yet there's you. You've become this fierce sort of need inside me. I sometimes don't think things are real until I tell them to you."

"That's why I could never hate you," Arthur interrupted Merlin. "Don't you understand that? Everything that you said, I feel that too, that's what you are for me. We're keeping each other afloat here, Merlin, I don't think I can let go of you now."

Arthur heard Merlin take a deep breath beside him and he held his hand as tightly as he could. He didn't know how else to reassure him.

"You know," Merlin said after a few minutes of quiet. "You're the only person I told that to, about Henry. I hadn't even told Morgana I was going to do it, or my mum. They both loved Henry so much and mum was just so damn happy that I'd found someone to love me like he did. Before Henry I was a bit of a tragedy as far as boyfriends go."

"You? Never. I don't believe it," Arthur quietly teased.

"Shut it," Merlin warned as he pulled on Arthur's hand.

"But you're such a paragon. Perfection personified."

Merlin laughed and it was a beautiful racketing noise in Arthur's ears. "You're the world's worst person, you know that, don't you?"

"What have I been telling you this entire time?" Arthur smiled at Merlin and he smiled back.

"Oh, you'll love this then," Merlin turned to his side so he could properly look at Arthur as he was telling his story. "It'll remind you of that one girl of yours you told me about, um, Hannah?"

"Anna." Arthur said. "Shit, Merlin, you had an Anna too?"

"Everyone has an Anna. I think it's the law of the universe or some malevolent dating god's punishment to all of his playthings here on earth."

"Did he steal your rent money and then start screaming at you in a drunken psychotic rage that you were stealing his soul and that the rent money was his compensation? That he knew you were following him at night because you were a bloody stalker, never mind the fact that _he_ was the one doing the actual stalking?"

"And even though I was sound asleep in my bed with zero urge to know what the fuck he was up to when he wasn't with me? Uh, yeah," Merlin answered.

Arthur laughed. "Annas are the best. What was yours called?"

"Luke. And he was fantastically insane. An insanity I was blinded to for many months by the fact that he was brown-eyed and black-haired and painfully good looking, you know the kind, all you have to do is see them and you get hard like some sort of Pavlovian sex response. Why is it the crazies are always the most phenomenal in bed?"

"Evolution," Arthur said sagely. "They've evolved into these fantastical sexual creatures in order to lure the unsuspecting in, it's purely a survival tactic. If people actually knew what they were like they'd never get laid again."

Merlin laughed quietly. "I should do a research paper on this phenomenon."

"I could provide a lot of statistics and valuable quotes for you, just say the word. I feel this is very important research."

"The world should know," Merlin nodded.

Arthur smiled and tugged on Merlin's hand. Merlin laid his head in the grass and closed his eyes and the world became quiet and still around them. Arthur was surprised that the city could sound so silent and that the two of them could feel so very far away and removed from it all. Arthur shifted on his back and closed his eyes too, they were done talking for a while and had moved into their silence. Arthur loved those moments when they'd just stop talking and settle into the quiet until one or the other had something to say and they'd pick up another thread of a conversation and carry on as if the words they'd been speaking before hadn't just drifted off and fallen away.

"Thank you for telling me," Arthur said after a time.

"Promise you don't hate me," Merlin whispered.

"Never. Couldn't do it anyway, even if I tried. Don't have it in me."

"I needed to tell someone and it needed to be you. We've been bogged down for months and months and I feel like it's only been the first stage of what we are, there's more to us and I had to have everything laid out there before we could figure out the next thing we are."

Arthur opened his eyes and turned to look at Merlin. "Like some sort of alien molting and transforming into an even more hideous monster?"

Merlin's eyes stayed shut but he snorted with laughter and Arthur watched his mouth break out into a grin so wide he was sure Merlin's teeth glowed in the dark. "Yes, Arthur, exactly like that. I have a feeling there'll be a lot of puss and slime and other grossness involved."

"Perfect."

Arthur closed his eyes again and let himself halfway fall asleep to the sound of Merlin's breathing and the distant sound of late night traffic. He wasn't exactly sure what they'd become now, this new alien creature, but he hoped the metamorphosis felt more like a dull ache and less like being torn asunder.

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

After that night Arthur noticed a distinct change in Merlin. He worked his proper hours and didn't hole himself up at the hospital, hiding behind his work and hiding from the truths he'd kept hidden from everyone around him. His voice was clear and light when he'd talk to Arthur and he looked more free, like he was beginning to allow himself to take steps away from his life with Henry and step, instead, into his new life, the one he was as yet unsure of but was hopeful of just the same.

Arthur wished he could do the same. He wanted to so badly but there was still the guilt hanging on him. The guilt he always felt when he thought of Henry or his father or what he felt for Merlin. All he could think about was the wrong he'd done people, he wasn't yet able to look at the good he'd done because it was all hidden in the fog of his guilt.

And yet. There was progress, in small doses. As he and Morgana had let the sun set around them that evening and they'd talked themselves out on that bench by the river Arthur had made some choices. They might have seemed small or unimportant but to him they were those first few steps that led up toward the light he could see so very far away, that light he wanted to reach.

He knew that sitting on his arse all day long waiting for Merlin or Morgana to call him back, to take him out of his house, was something that had to fucking stop. He needed a job and a way to make a living that didn't involve being a professional couch warmer. Morgana had asked him what he wanted to do and when he'd looked at her with a terrified expression on his face she'd sighed and told him he didn't need to decide what he wanted to do _forever_ just something that might make him happy _now_. He could be a fucking dog walker if that's what he wanted. Arthur had looked at her like she was crazy, not in a bad way but in a sort of revelatory way. It was so fucking simple and yet it had eluded him. He'd been so focused on making huge life decisions, things that were meant to mark the rest of his life, that he'd never thought to even consider maybe just being happy in the moment. Simply being okay for a few months and giving himself time to think things through before moving onto something more. It probably wasn't anything revolutionary to anyone other than Arthur but it mattered to him in a very profound way. It made the deciding less terrifying and hope more reachable.

Morgana knew all the reasons he'd gone to New Orleans and how he'd never wanted to be like his father or his brother, how he'd fought so damn hard not to be, and failing miserably in the process. She'd looked at him and said, _'let's figure out right now, shall we? we'll figure out all the rest some other day, a day with no ducks maybe?'_ and he'd laughed and felt so fucking light in that moment. He'd confessed to her then about how, when times were lean - well, they were always lean, but leaner than most - he'd given guitar lessons, and how much he secretly liked it. She'd rolled her eyes at that, how he'd acted like enjoying something was some sort of dirty secret, and just said his name all quiet and dear and told him she thought he'd be a lovely music teacher, why not give that a try here?

And somehow the decision was done, and it had been simple. Arthur had felt stupid for thinking it was some sort of insurmountable task but Morgana had looked at him in a way that made him feel infinitely less foolish, she'd smiled and told him she was proud of him and he had felt his throat clogging up because the only two people in his life that had ever told him they were proud of him were dead. He'd reached out for her then in a mad kind of rush and pulled her into his arms, she had sort of tumbled into his hug with a muffled and surprised squeak. Arthur apologized but didn't let go and she'd only laughed and said it was okay as she hugged him back just as tightly.

He'd let the idea sit inside him for several days after his and Morgana's conversation and his and Merlin's night in the park; both days had been life changing for Arthur, in different ways, but both so significant that he'd had to let them rest for a while. He'd gone out for a walk on his own to clear everything out and figure out a way to tell Merlin about the decisions he'd made about the future. He was embarrassingly excited about telling him; there was this sincere and tentative hope burning inside him that maybe Merlin might be just as proud of him as Morgana had been, as he was of himself. It was an overwhelming feeling to actually want that, to want to please other people instead of trying his damnedest to push them away.

That feeling of hope had put a smile on his face as he opened the front door and headed inside to the kitchen.

"You're smiling."

Uther's voice stopped him in his tracks. All the lights were off when he'd gotten home and Arthur had thought Uther was either still at work or shut up behind closed doors, he'd never expected to see him sitting by himself in the dark at the kitchen table.

"I am."

What was he supposed to say?

"I miss seeing your smile. You look so much like your mother when you do."

Uther never talked about his mother and his doing so felt a bit like being knocked over. Arthur didn't know what to feel, other than confusion. He'd never thought Uther missed him in any way, much less his smile. And he'd had always thought Henry was the one that took after their mother, everything about him was kind and gentle, to be compared to that left Arthur adrift.

"Henry took after me, people always commented on that. But your mother? That's you, that was always you. Your eyes, your smile. The two of you were a picture."

Ah, there it was. Uther was speaking of looks, not actions. It only made sense, Arthur had been so impulsive and quick tempered, in that way he was his father through and through.

Arthur gave a dispirited laugh. "Looks, yes, but my temper is all you."

His eyes had started to adjust to the dark and he saw Uther nod in agreement. "Inside you're me; hot tempered and blind to the things around you, always pushing against the people that love you and the things that could make you happy just to be spiteful."

"And there's the father I know and love," Arthur said as he pushed himself away from the door frame he was leaning against. "I'm off to bed then."

"Arthur." His father's voice stopped his exit. "I'm not saying those things to hurt you. I'm saying them to try to make you understand." Uther frowned and paused for a bit, like he wasn't sure how to continue on. "All those ways you think you've messed up and disappointed me have only made me love you all the more. You haven't gone about making decisions in the best way but you have conviction and strength, even as you fight against yourself." Uther stopped again and looked at Arthur. "You make me proud, Arthur."

Arthur was left speechless. He couldn't remember a time his father had ever outright said he was proud of him. From time to time Arthur might have received a nod and a pat on the back or a squeeze to his shoulder, but Uther had never vocalized his pride and Arthur could count on one hand the times Uther had said he loved him. It just wasn't done in their family, not without his mother. It was why Henry was so important to Arthur and had left a hole he wasn't sure would ever be filled. Henry had done all he could to give Arthur love and support but what he had truly wanted all along was the same kind of affection from his father.

"I never knew that," Arthur said as he stood and looked at his father.

Uther rose from his chair and walked over to Arthur. "How could you have?" he asked as he set a hand on Arthur's shoulder. "I never said."

Arthur wrapped his hand around his father's wrist and held his arm in place, forced Uther to keep contact, and he felt himself leaning toward him, his head dropping down as he closed his eyes and tried to steady his racing thoughts. There were so many things he wanted to say; he wanted to apologize for the things he'd done, for being so difficult and angry, he wanted to ask his father to tell him stories about his mother and ask him whether or not he thought Arthur had made Henry proud too. He wanted so much but knew it would take longer than one night and a moment of letting go by his father to get all of it said. Uther seemed to follow Arthur's unspoken words because he squeezed his shoulder and leaned in to press a kiss to the top of his head.

"You're a good boy, Arthur. I'm sorry I never told you." Uther whispered.

Arthur shook his head. "No. No, I'm not. I've been such a disappointment to you and to Henry and I wish I could take it all back."

Uther wrapped an arm around Arthur and he would have laughed at the awkwardness of it all, Uther's stunted movements and efforts at comforting, but he was trying and Arthur let him. He leaned into his father and let his head rest on Uther's shoulder. He didn't know how they'd fumble their way through all of this without Henry but he felt, for the first time, that this thing with his father was worth the effort.

"You never disappointed your brother. Not once," Uther said as he tentatively patted Arthur on the back. "If you only believe one thing, believe that."

Arthur nodded, still unsure but desperate to believe in his father. They were all they had left now, he had to trust him if they were ever going to get anywhere.

Arthur hugged Uther then, wrapped both arms around him and hugged him like he hadn't done since he was a child. Uther made a surprised huff but returned the hug for a moment before pulling away and coughing. "There, there. How about some tea then?"

Arthur let go of Uther and smiled, even laughed quietly at Uther's awkward attempt at ending all this touchy-feely bullshit between them.

"Tea would be grand, thanks Dad."

Uther nodded and shuffled into the kitchen, flipping on the lights as he went. Arthur blinked against the sudden light, it felt a bit like snapping back into some form of reality. The darkness did crazy things to a person, he knew that, and all he could do was watch his father get the kettle on and hope the two of them could pull a bit of this nighttime madness into the light of day. He turned away from the kitchen and wandered over to the table. Uther had been looking through an old photo albums and Arthur sat down in his chair to find himself and Henry smiling back up at him. And his mother, young and beautiful and every ideal Arthur had of what a mother ought to be. He knew he romanticized her, he knew she wasn't actually perfect - no one was, not even Henry - but she was as close to perfect as Arthur had ever found and he was content to leave it at that. Maybe his father could tell him things to make him think otherwise and a small part of Arthur hoped he would; that he'd tell him that she was a horrible dancer, that she couldn't spell to save her life or that she'd dropped him on the head as a baby. He hoped to find out her imperfections so he could love her all the more for them, just as he'd loved Henry despite his tone deafness and inexplicable love for reality tv.

He could hear Uther still bumbling around in the kitchen so he started to flip through the pages as he waited for him to come back. Each page told the story of a family that had started out bright and strong but had faltered and broken apart in the middle.

"You were always an ornery little sod," Uther said as he set a mug of tea in front of Arthur who looked up at him in question. Uther touched the corner of a picture of him with his arm wrapped around Henry. Henry was smiling happily, all clean and shirt tucked in, Arthur was smiling just as happily beside him but with a black eye and no front teeth and strawberry jam smeared across his Superman t-shirt.

"You beat up - "

"Malcolm Paxton," Arthur finished for Uther, a smile spreading over his face. "He was picking on Henry."

Uther laughed. "He was three years older than you and a good head taller but if I recall correctly he was the one that came out looking worse for wear."

"I don't know, I look fairly dodgy here."

"Well the black eye was his doing but those missing teeth were all on you. You lost all four front teeth in the span of two days. Your mother thought you might have come down with scurvy or some such nonsense. I assured her you were fine and made sure not to tell her I'd heard you through Henry's door say, _'pull on the bloody string already, Hen, I want my tooth fairy money.'_ "

Arthur laughed out loud then. "I remember that. I'm pretty sure I was living under the assumption that my life was a cartoon and that one could tie strings to loose teeth and get results."

"It must have worked somehow because you got rid of all four."

"I actually just ate a mouthful of taffy and two of them got stuck in it, the other two came out on their own," Arthur confessed. "Henry wouldn't pull on the damn string, he was too scared of getting in trouble."

Uther smiled. "Yes. I can see it all perfectly."

Arthur smiled and took a sip of tea. "Fucking hell," he spit out as he coughed. "This has bloody scotch in it, Dad."

Uther shrugged. "It must have fallen in by accident," he said before taking a drink of his own.

"Figures," Arthur said. "You'd have to be half pissed to give me a hug."

"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? But I'm nowhere near intoxicated and you'll be able to look forward to many more awkward attempts on my part to hug you. I'm going to try my damnedest to be the father that you deserve."

Arthur swallowed and looked up at Uther whose face was earnest and sincere. He didn't know what he was doing but like all things he did in his life he was going at it full force and Arthur decided he was going to let him, painful awkwardness and all. He'd lived enough of his life emotionally stunted and pathetically inept, he figured it was time for a proper change.

"I love you, Dad." Arthur mumbled it and looked just left of Uther's face when he said it, but he said it and he figured that was what counted in the end.

"I love you too, Arthur." Arthur laughed at the formal tone of Uther's voice. Uther just grumbled and said, "Oh do get on with it then," and waved at Arthur to drink more of his pepped up tea.

They sat in silence and continued to flip through the photo album together. Arthur found it oddly comfortable, and comforting, and turned to Uther to give him a small smile. Uther smiled back and ruffled his hair, he felt about seven years old.

"Now, this smile of yours when you came in," Uther broke the silence. "What brought that on?"

"Merlin," Arthur answered. "I was thinking about calling him just then."

"Merlin's a good lad."

"He is, isn't he? And Morgana as well. She gets credit for the smile too."

"I miss seeing them, Henry used to bring Merlin over all the time and sometimes Morgana as well. Those two seemed to be joined at the hip." Uther smiled. "You should tell them to come round sometime."

"I will." Arthur nodded. "When I was with Morgana we had a really amazing talk. She has this way about her, of saying things in just the right way and making everything clear. Merlin does that too. I don't know what it is about the two of them."

"I saw the way Merlin was with Henry. I think he'll do wonders for you, Arthur."

"He scares me sometimes." Arthur admitted.

Uther looked at Arthur in a way that confused him, he was quiet and focused and Arthur felt like maybe he saw a little bit too much.

"All of the best people terrify and overwhelm you. Your mother scared me to the depths of my soul sometimes. It's that terror that makes you know you're alive and that you have something to lose, it makes you hold on with every ounce of strength you've got in you."

Uther seemed shocked he said something so telling, and Arthur was too. He didn't push any further though, he didn't want to embarrass Uther any more than he already was. This communication thing between them had always been fucked up and it would be fucked up for a long time to come but Arthur was willing to let it happen slowly. It'd be too much of a shock otherwise.

"So," his father broke the weighted silence. "Tell me about your day with Morgana. What did you talk about that brought on the smile?"

Arthur let his face settle into another smile at the memory.

"Music lessons, Dad."

And strangely enough Uther nodded like he'd known that was coming all along.

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

"You've had a traumatic week," Merlin grinned at him over his cup of coffee. They were back at the coffee shop where they'd met each other that first time after they'd talked in Henry's flat. "First I fall apart all over you in the middle of the night while rolling around on the ground and then a few days later your dad decides to go crazy in the middle of the night. Nights are not a good time for you, Arthur."

Arthur laughed. "I'm trying to somehow think of a way to eliminate them entirely. It should be day all the time."

"I suppose you could move to the north pole, that'd take care of it for part of the year at least."

"Only if you come with and live in my igloo with me."

"Ah, fuck, here I was hoping you'd say come and help you make toys or something. I'd go if it were the toy making bit, igloos on the other hand? No thanks. Too cold."

"You really need to toughen up, Merlin."

"Yeah, maybe," Merlin said as he pulled a leg up onto his chair. Arthur loved how he folded himself up wherever he sat, always with a leg up and an arm wrapped around it. "But it was good though, wasn't it? With your father, I mean. With me it was just traumatic."

"It was good," Arthur shook his head. "It was really good, actually. And even the part with you. All of it just lifted something off of me, made it a bit easier to breathe."

"You know I'm sorry about breaking down all over you."

"I told you, Merlin, you don't need to apologize."

"But it's a lot to take in, and you're always taking everything in, you never let anything out yourself. Have you even cried yet? I mean properly, the kind that rips through you, tears your guts apart and makes you look snotty, pathetic and worn down to the bone."

Arthur shrugged and looked past Merlin, out the window. "I don't cry."

Merlin set his cup down. "Everyone cries. It's cathartic."

"I don't. I never have. I don't know, maybe I'm just not programmed that way."

"Yeah, okay, robot-o-tron, if that's what you think."

"You're looking at me strangely, Merlin," Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Why do I feel as if you're going to start trying to make me cry. Please don't punch me, I really hate getting punched."

"Alright, so maybe I want you to cry." Merlin threw his hand halfway up and let it drop back down onto the table. "I don't know. I just feel like I want to do something for you, that I want to be able to help you for a change. And if you cry like a little girl, all the better."

Arthur laughed at the smile on Merlin's face. "You're a sick puppy."

"Yeah, I've been told that."

In a fit of courage Arthur reached out and twined his fingers with Merlin's. "It's one of the many marvelous things about you."

Merlin's fingers laid unmoving for second or two as Merlin looked Arthur in the eyes until something in them switched over and his fingers curled around Arthur's. His hand was like it always was, the palm warm and the long fingers strangely cold. Arthur could never figure out just how it happened but he knew that even if he was blindfolded in a room filled with a thousand people he'd always be able to pick Merlin's hand out. Everything about it painfully familiar and loved. Just like the rest of him.

"Someone ought to take care of you, Arthur," Merlin said, his eyes still fixed on his.

"You do," Arthur barely managed to get those two words out, they meant more than Merlin knew. "All of you," he quickly added. "You, Morgana and now my dad. Irina. You all take care of me."

Merlin dragged Arthur's hand closer to him. "Arthur, I -." he began. "Some days I just want to be able to give you more. That's all. I just want to give you more."

Merlin wasn't looking at him any longer and Arthur's heart was rattling in his chest. God, he wanted that too. He wanted more and he only wished Merlin had meant it in the way Arthur did.

"You have no idea what you give me," Arthur said quietly.

"Whatever it is, it could never be enough. I would give you so much more if I could." Merlin's voice was barely a whisper and Arthur just about missed it over the noise of the people talking around them.

 _If only you would._ Arthur thought. _I'd take it. I'd take it all. My greed would blind you._

He squeezed Merlin's hand instead, hoping he knew that it meant Arthur understood. "Should we leave? Morgana did say eight, right?"

Merlin's smile was relieved, grateful. Arthur suspected he hadn't meant to say that last thing out loud and was embarrassed by it. He wanted to tell Merlin he need never be embarrassed with him, that there was nothing he could do or say that would make him seem foolish in Arthur's eyes.

"Yeah, she did. And if we're late for her birthday you could probably guarantee yourself a smack."

Arthur laughed and pulled Merlin to his feet. He could do this, make this thing between them okay. Normal even. The alternative was losing Merlin's friendship and he couldn't handle that.

 

  
****~~**~~****   


Morgana was already well and truly pissed by the time Arthur and Merlin made it to the pub. She was hooting and hollering and pulling everyone within arms' reach in for a good long snog. Arthur made sure to be within arms' reach as quickly as possible as Merlin stood next to them and laughed himself stupid.

"You came!" Morgana shouted happily once she pried her lips off of Arthur's rather stunned ones. She was a fucking amazing kisser when drunk.

"You would've murdered us in our sleep if we hadn't." Merlin rolled his eyes as he hugged her and got a snog as well. Arthur was happy to note that Merlin's wasn't nearly as long as his had been, although that very well could have been because Merlin pushed Morgana's face away halfway through the kiss with a teasing, _'ew, Morgana germs. ge'off.'_ that send Morgana into another raucous round of laughter as she tried coming back in for another snog, her tongue waggling at Merlin.

"She's a brilliant drunk," Arthur leaned into Merlin.

"She could drink a sailor under the table so I'm pretty sure she's been drinking since this morning if she's giving away tongue and boob smashes this early in the evening."

"Eh," Arthur shrugged as Merlin signaled to the bartender that they wanted two pints. "I'll take them anyway I can get them."

"That's what most guys say." Merlin gave Arthur a half smile. "Morgana has that kind of effect on people. I mean look at her."

"Look at you," Arthur blurted out. "You're no slouch yourself." Arthur could feel his face burning and he saw a flush coming over Merlin's cheeks as well.

Merlin frowned a bit, said, "Thanks," in an odd sort of stumbly way.

"I didn't mean it like that. I didn't mean the slouch stuff to sound insulting."

"No, no I didn't take it like that," Merlin said. "I took it -, well, if I'm honest I don't know how to take you sometimes."

"I'm hard to take." Arthur tried for teasing.

Merlin looked down at his hands, twisted his fingers together. "You confuse me. And every time I see you it gets worse. Sometimes I think I can make it go away if I try hard enough but that's only when I'm not with you. When I'm with you?" Merlin paused and risked a look up at Arthur. "When I'm with you all my resolve crumbles. I keep telling myself we're friends, there's nothing confusing about that, but then I see you and I start to want things I shouldn't want."

"Merlin, I -" Arthur began but the bartender set their pints down in front of them and Merlin used the interruption to break apart their conversation.

"Beer's here," he said in an overly loud voice as he grabbed his pint and shoved Arthur's at him. "Drink."

Arthur grabbed Merlin's sleeve. "Merlin, I don't want to drink. Not right now. We need to talk. I have to tell you something that's been hovering over me for a while now."

Merlin shook his head. "I shouldn't have said anything. This isn't the place."

"I'm glad you said it. I don't want you to take any of it back later."

"I won't, I just -. Let's do this later. Right now we need to get piss drunk and embarrass ourselves and Morgana, but mostly Morgana."

He couldn't do much but reluctantly agree.

Arthur spent the rest of the night springing from one emotion to the next. Morgana introduced him to more of her and Merlin's friends and there were moments when Arthur could almost forget what Merlin had told him, when he could drink and laugh with everyone else, but those moments were fleeting because he'd make the mistake of looking at Merlin more than he should and would find him looking back. His eyes dark and thoughtful and a mixture of warring emotions. Sometimes when Arthur would look at him he'd look hopeful, resolved even, and Arthur would feel a rush run through him. His blood would sing, his limbs would need a good shaking just to allow him to stay sitting still, because he'd have the crazy thought that Merlin would tell him everything he wanted to hear from him. But then other times he'd look and Merlin's eyes would hold a sadness in them so real and so true that it ran the very real risk of breaking Arthur completely apart.

He felt manic and adrift. He couldn't keep his thoughts straight and he hoped he could blame it on the alcohol if anyone commented on it. He was sure he looked like a person unable to control a single thought in his head, a person slightly unhinged. He was jangly with nerves and hope and a sense of despair that maybe everything would fall apart after tonight. After they talked. It felt like it loomed over everything they did, ominous and pressing down on them both.

Even drunk as she was Morgana noticed the tension between them, how they orbited around each other, circling but never coming near enough to each other to touch or even talk to one another. After a couple hours of the insanity she bumped his shoulder with hers, shoved into him more like, and asked him what the fuck was going on. What was wrong? Her eyes burned into him, her focus all consuming. Arthur had shaken his head, answered, _'nothing.'_ Morgana only looked at him, the disbelief clearly written across her face.

Arthur could only watch as she abandoned him and made her way through the crowd to Merlin. She grabbed his arm, shook him to attention. Arthur could see the flush of their heated skin and the looks sparking between them, both angry and gesturing with sharp, frustrated jabs. After a while Merlin stopped talking altogether but Morgana kept at him. From time to time he'd glance over in Arthur's direction but his expression was blank, unreadable. It only made Arthur's own frustration more intense.

Finally Morgana shoved at Merlin, threw up her hands and walked away from him in a flash of anger. Merlin watched her walk away for a second or two before he turned to seek out Arthur's eyes, always on him, waiting. He nodded his head toward the door and Arthur nodded his own in agreement before making his way toward the exit.

Merlin made it to the door before Arthur and by the time he was outside Merlin had already started walking down the pavement. Arthur turned and followed him. Merlin walked like he had a purpose; steps quick and an oddly straight, rigid spine. Arthur couldn't stop staring at the back of Merlin's neck and the skin there, pale and vulnerable.

Arthur didn't know what made Merlin stop, what flipped the switch inside of him, if he had felt Arthur's stare like a searing burn or if he'd finally just decided to give up whatever fight was warring inside him, but he stopped walking suddenly and Arthur stopped too. He heard him draw in a ragged breath and it sounded painful to Arthur's ears. He could see Merlin nearly vibrating with tension.

"Fuck," he gasped. "You drive me crazy. You drive me crazy and you won't stop. None of it stops, it only gets worse."

"I didn't know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to," Arthur knew he was fumbling around for a proper response but it didn't matter, Merlin stopped him.

He turned around to look at Arthur. He looked broken, resigned. "You make me crazy," he repeated. "Like no one," his voice cracked. "Like no one else."

Merlin reached out for him then, grabbed onto him with a desperate grip. His fingers dug into Arthur's arm and it felt a little bit like Merlin was punishing him, his hold hurt but there was no way he was stepping away. Merlin's fingers twisted into the fabric of his shirt sleeve and he shook him, angry and frantic. Arthur let him. He wanted to tell Merlin to hit him, slap him, do whatever he wanted just so he would stop looking so damned lost and afraid.

"Crazy," Merlin repeated one last time, his voice quiet and choked. Arthur barely heard him. But then he jerked Arthur forward at the same time he leaned into him and their lips crashed together, awkward and painful, and then there was just this hard press of lips. Merlin, his fingers twisted into Arthur's sleeve and his eyes tightly shut, just standing before him and keeping his mouth pressed firmly against Arthur's. They weren't kissing, not really, there was just their lips and harsh breathing. Arthur thought about all the ways this could go wrong and all the ways he'd ache if he didn't stop this press of nothing and actually kiss Merlin.

"God. _Merlin._ " Arthur pulled away from Merlin just enough to whisper against his lips, to give him a breath of a chance to back away and stop whatever it was that was coming next. But Merlin didn't pull away, instead he tightened his grip on Arthur's arms and leaned forward. _'Please,'_ he said and Arthur chose to ignore the way his voice cracked as it let go of that single plea. It sounded like it was pulled from him but in that moment Arthur didn't care because he parted his lips and opened up to Merlin, took what he'd been dying to take for weeks.

Merlin gasped into the kiss and his breath, hot and quick, rushed against Arthur's lips. Arthur grabbed onto Merlin's hips to keep him from leaving and deepened the kiss, put everything he had into it because if it was the only one he and Merlin would ever have he wanted it to be the one thing he remembered at the end. He wanted to leave this world with the taste of Merlin on his lips, remembered from a long ago night when they were broken and found each other and did things that were foolish, rash, and possibly perfect. Arthur pulled on Merlin's bottom lip and Merlin made a shocked noise as he stumbled against him, a foot stepping on Arthur's as he pushed his hands up into Arthur's hair and pressed into him. Merlin's fingers twisted painfully in Arthur's hair as he pushed into him, like he couldn't get close enough, and Arthur dug his fingers into Merlin until he moaned and felt the same desperate pain that Arthur did.

"We can't do this," Merlin gasped, barely capable of breathing. Arthur was the same, the air wouldn't come back to him. He tipped his head back and inhaled, tried to swallow down air. Merlin leaned in, pressed his face into Arthur's arched throat and whispered, "We can't," against his Adam's apple.

"Please," Arthur said. He could feel Merlin's breath warm and wet on his skin and his fingers curling around his neck like they were getting ready to choke him if he said the wrong thing, but the problem was Arthur didn't know what Merlin wanted to hear. He closed his eyes against what would come next. "Just this one time. It never has to be more than just this once but I fucking need you, Merlin. Please."

Merlin sagged against him once those words were out. Arthur felt all his resistance leave him and he didn't know if he was simply giving up or giving in.

"Yes," Merlin said before Arthur could say anything more. "Yes."

Arthur didn't know words could hold actual heat, that they could burn you from the inside out and that a simple word like yes could nearly bring you to your knees.

Merlin's hand crushed Arthur's fingers in its hold as he dragged him down the street until they spotted a cab. Merlin gave the driver his address in clipped, precise words and they settled into the backseat. They sat as far apart as the seat would allow, each one looked as if he were trying to push himself out of the side of the cab and into oblivion, but on the seat between them their hands remained twisted together. Arthur's hand was shaking, the trembling worked its way up his arm and into his chest. He started shivering uncontrollably. The sound of his teeth chattering thundered in his ears and all he could think about was waking up early into the still blackness of night at some random place and having to drive home and feeling so cold that it rattled him down to his bones, that unbearable shaking that couldn't be stopped no matter how high he turned up the heat or how hard he tried to hold himself still. He pressed his forehead against the window and closed his eyes, wished the shaking would stop. Every few seconds Merlin would squeeze his hand and he'd squeeze back.

But nothing stopped the shaking.

When the cab pulled up in front of Merlin's building he paid the driver without a word and reached again for Arthur's hand to pull him out of the cab behind him. Arthur followed, of course he did, he couldn't follow Merlin close enough or long enough to ever satisfy the ache inside him to always be at Merlin's side.

Arthur pressed his forehead against the back of Merlin's neck, into that beautiful pale skin, as he unlocked his door. Once it was unlocked neither one moved for a while. Arthur didn't know if Merlin was hoping he'd give up and leave him, if he'd just turn around and walk away and leave Merlin standing alone outside his door free and clear of the stain of wanting, or if he was trying to steady himself before they took that last step.

"Don't give up on me now," Arthur whispered and Merlin shivered when his quiet words hit the back of his neck.

Merlin shook his head. "I won't. I can't." He reached back for Arthur's hand and pulled it around him, held it to the center of his chest. "Just let me have this for a second, let me pretend like this is just us, that we don't have any baggage or aches and pains and we're just coming home, okay? We do this every night and your hand on my heart has worn a groove into my chest."

Arthur unfurled his hand, pressed his palm flat against Merlin's chest, and nodded. "Right here, a perfect fit."

Merlin's fingers curled around his wrist. "Just like everything else we are."

Arthur wanted to believe the illusion, the want pressed into him from all sides and the only relief was to lean into Merlin and close his eyes.

Merlin finally pushed the door open and led Arthur inside. He closed the door behind them and the second his hands left the door they were framing Arthur's face as Merlin pulled him in for a kiss. One far different from the hard crush of lips their first had been, hesitant and stuttered, instead of that Merlin's lips were pliant under Arthur's, hungry and certain. Merlin kissed him like a man who was determined to get everything he wanted and Arthur was willing to give it to him. All of it, all of _him_.

Merlin was just that little bit taller than Arthur and he loved the way it felt to tilt his head back just a fraction to raise himself up to meet Merlin in that breath of space in between. That charged space that felt at once within reach yet vast and beyond anything in Arthur's world.

And they kissed. God how they kissed. They stood in Merlin's front hallway and kissed until they were breathless and lightheaded and then they'd stop to catch their breath, to touch each other's faces, before starting all over again. Arthur felt they were making up for lost time and storing up for everything that would happen after. He wanted to tell Merlin that they should have always been doing this, that they should have been kissing their entire lives, because he believed in that moment he was meant to find Merlin. They were supposed to happen, the two of them, and it didn't matter how they came to be, it couldn't matter, not in that moment.

Arthur moved the hand he had slipped under all the layers of clothing that covered Merlin to hold him steady from the small of his back, around his side, and to the flat plane of his stomach. Arthur felt the skin twitch under his palm and he gently pushed Merlin back. Merlin was reluctant to part and Arthur's eyes dropped to Merlin's jutted chin, his parted lips, that were just waiting to be kissed again. He pushed his hand a bit into Merlin's belly, urged him to start walking backward, and Merlin's eyes lazily opened to look at him. Merlin saw in Arthur's stare, and felt in the press of his hand, what he wanted and nodded his head in return.

Merlin took a step back from Arthur and unzipped his hoodie, let it drop to the floor along with the other layers he was shedding along the way. A shoe here, a button down there. And Arthur's clothes followed, a shoe next to Merlin's as to not leave it stranded all alone, his own shirt was dropped on top of Merlin's in the hope that it would absorb Merlin's scent into every one of its fibers and would stop smelling of Arthur altogether and begin to smell of Merlin instead.

Once they got to Merlin's bedroom he took Arthur by the shoulders and sat him down on the bed with a brush of lips against his cheek and a quiet, _'I'll be right back,'_ in his ear. Arthur sat on the edge of the bed and looked around Merlin's room. He'd been in it before, he'd helped Merlin move in six months prior. Merlin had wanted to sell Henry's flat as quickly as possible and find a place of his own, one removed from his former life. As Arthur sat on the bed and looked around him he was glad for it, he didn't think he could have stood it if they'd been back at Henry's flat and in a place the two of them had shared so intimately. It was hard enough what they were doing, Henry's ghost already loomed over them, it would have been unbearable to be in the same physical space they had once shared as well.

Arthur let the guilt run through him as he got up and walked over to the bookshelves where he knew Merlin had placed a framed photo of Henry. He was caught in the middle of a laugh and Arthur reached out to run his fingers along the frame and over Henry's face. Everything about him had been quiet, subdued, everything but his laugh. It had been loud and Arthur had always teased him that he sounded like a fucking braying mule, but in truth he only told Henry that to make him laugh more. Louder. There had been so many times he'd wanted to punch Henry in the arm and yell at him to live his life out loud, as loud as he fucking laughed, but he never did and Henry never had. He stayed his quiet self and let Arthur's chaos swirl around him.

Arthur's fingers stilled on the glass. "I'm sorry, Hen. I'm sorry, but I want him so much. Let me have this one night and you can hate me all the rest after it."

"Who are you talking to?"

Arthur turned to look at Merlin standing in the doorway. He leaned against the frame half naked, his jeans sitting low on his hips. Long and lean, and damn it, Arthur's. Arthur's for just one night.

"A ghost."

Merlin walked over to Arthur and touched his fingers to the frame as well. He looked at Henry's laughing mouth in silence. Arthur watched him breathe in and out and he wondered what Merlin was saying to Henry, if he was apologizing for wanting Arthur back, for being just as selfish. He didn't know but he kept his eyes on Merlin and saw as he took a deep breath and gently set the photo face down. He turned to Arthur and wrapped an arm around his neck and another around his waist.

"No ghosts tonight," he whispered as he touched his forehead to Arthur's and leaned into him. "We're not haunted."

Arthur shook his head and agreed, no, we're not. It was the only thing he could do, he had to push it all away for just a few hours because after that he'd be haunted in more ways than he could count. He needed this short reprieve.

Merlin moved against Arthur and held him tightly as he kissed him until he forgot everything but Merlin.

Arthur wrapped his arms around Merlin's waist, turned them around and walked them over to the bed. The backs of Merlin's legs hit the edge of the mattress and Arthur pushed him back against the bed. Merlin let Arthur lay him down on it and Arthur took a moment to look down at him. He was beautiful and Arthur loved him more than he could stand. Merlin stared back up at him and Arthur knew that in any other life they'd be fucking brilliant. Perfect.

Merlin brought his arms up over his eyes, hid himself away for a second or two before let out a rush of breath and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, scrubbed at them in agitation. "Damn you, Arthur," he said. "Damn you."

Arthur didn't have a chance to respond because Merlin surged forward, reached out for Arthur and grabbed onto him, pulling him down on top of him. Arthur kissed him to stop any other words from spilling out of Merlin's mouth, curses or otherwise. Merlin wrapped his legs around Arthur's thighs, pushed his hips up into him. Arthur dug his fingers into Merlin's hair and held on as he kissed him. Hot, heavy kisses that filled him with want and made him hard. He felt a breath of surprise slip from Merlin's lips when he felt Arthur's cock push against him as he rocked his hips up. It sounded satisfied and needy both and Arthur wanted to say, _'no, damn_ you _, Merlin. damn you.'_

It wasn't long before Merlin's hands were at Arthur's waist pulling at his jeans and underwear. Arthur lifted his hips back and let Merlin unzip him and push his clothes down past his hips. Arthur rolled off of Merlin completely so he could pull his clothes off the rest of the way. Merlin turned him onto his back and looked down at him. He touched Arthur's lips and let his hands run down his neck and over his chest, down his sides and to his hips. Merlin stopped there and stared. He seemed to be frozen and Arthur wanted to shake him, wanted to wake him up and make him move so he could be just as naked as Arthur.

Arthur felt exposed under Merlin's gaze, it burned into him and he could feel prickles of heat work themselves under his skin at his neck and down his chest. He hoped he was enough for Merlin, he wanted him to look at him and want him the same way he wanted Merlin.

Merlin kept stroking the skin over his hips, tracing his thumb over his hipbone and staring at him in silence. Finally he leaned over and kissed the spot on Arthur's left hip that his thumb had been brushing over. He kept his lips hovering over Arthur's skin.

"You're fucking perfect, Arthur," he whispered. "Just like I knew you'd be."

Arthur reached down and ran his fingers through Merlin's hair and closed his eyes. It was too much and he didn't know if he could take any more of Merlin's words.

"I want you so much," Arthur said. "You're breaking me apart here."

Merlin looked up at Arthur, rested his chin on Arthur's hip. Arthur could feel his gaze on him and he opened his eyes and looked down at him. "We're already broken," Merlin said. "We're going to put each other back together now."

And Arthur believed him. He reached down and grabbed onto Merlin's biceps to drag him up his chest and to his mouth so he could kiss those lips that spoke the truth as he knew it. Merlin settled his elbows on either side of Arthur's head and looked down at him as he combed his fingers through Arthur's hair.

"That's the plan, right?" he asked. Arthur nodded and kissed him.

Arthur slid his bare leg along the outside of Merlin's and loved the feel of the seam of Merlin's jeans sliding along the inside of his thigh. He held onto Merlin as he rubbed his cock against Merlin's thigh. The jeans felt rough against his cock but it felt so fucking good Arthur kept rocking his hips up into Merlin, fucking himself on his thigh.

"You feel so fucking good," he breathed against Merlin's neck.

Merlin was rubbing against him as well and Arthur could feel Merlin's hardness through his jeans. Merlin's toes pushed into the mattress as he fucked himself against Arthur. He was breathless and Arthur could feel him shaking against him. Arthur only held him closer and smiled to himself; he felt the same, he was thrumming with it, the need to touch every piece of Merlin immediately. He couldn't possibly get enough of him, his hands, his body, couldn't move fast enough to satisfy him. He felt a bit crazy, like he was fifteen again and rutting against Tamsin Lorrie on her little pink canopied bed. The only thing going through his mind, _'I want. I want. I want.'_

Merlin pulled away from him suddenly and sat back on his heels to unbuckle his belt. Arthur ran his hands over the tops of Merlin's thighs as he unbuckled and unzipped his jeans. Arthur watched Merlin's hands shake and once he was done Arthur grabbed one to bring it down to his mouth for a kiss. He held it against his face and Merlin's thumb gently traced his cheekbone.

"I have it, in my pocket," Merlin mumbled as his hand left Arthur's face to dig in his pocket. "I got them from the bathroom. Before."

Merlin pulled out a couple packets of condoms and a small bottle of lube and held them in his hands.

"I haven't. Not since Henry." Arthur watched his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed. "But I bought more hoping -." Merlin's voice trailed off.

Arthur reached out for Merlin's hands. "I know."

Merlin nodded and dropped everything onto the mattress as he moved off of Arthur and stood at the side of the bed to strip away his jeans and underwear. As he stood there naked Arthur moved to the edge of the bed and wrapped his arms around Merlin's waist, pulled him between his spread thighs. He pressed his face into Merlin's stomach and breathed him in. He smelt of warmth and the smokiness of the pub. His cock pressed, hot, insistent, against Arthur's chest. Arthur felt the wetness the tip of it left on his skin.

Arthur kissed a path across Merlin's stomach as his fingers followed the curve of Merlin's spine; swooping in at the small of his back, down to his arse, and between his cheeks. Merlin gasped, jumped, as Arthur's fingers brushed against him. His hands went to Arthur's shoulders. His fingers started kneading them and curving up around his neck. Arthur kissed his side.

"Lie down," Arthur said and Merlin nodded, complied. Arthur watched as Merlin backed out from between his thighs to crawl onto the bed. He brushed against Arthur's side as he brought one knee up and then the other. Arthur ran his hand down Merlin's arm once he was settled, brushed the backs of his fingers along Merlin's hip. "I can't get over you," he whispered as his palm slid over Merlin's hip and settled low on his belly.

A strange noise slipped from Merlin's mouth, something caught between a breath and a nervous laugh and he grabbed at Arthur's hand. "I don't want you to get over me."

Arthur wanted to tell him not to worry, it would never happen. Merlin was a part of him. He lived inside Arthur's very bones now and had kept him upright, kept him from collapsing in on himself over all these past months.

Arthur shook his head and whispered, "foolish man," instead as he reached for the small pile of things Merlin's fingers had dropped onto the bed. He moved down by Merlin's knees and took them in his hand as he spread Merlin's legs apart. "Let me see you."

Merlin let his legs fall apart. Arthur settled between them and opened up the bottle of lube. He could feel Merlin's concentrated stare burning into him, he felt the heat all through him, and he looked back up at him. Merlin's eyes were dark, hooded, but his gaze never wavered. Arthur kept his eyes on Merlin as he slid a finger inside him. Merlin's mouth opened in a gasp and his hips arched up off the bed but his eyes stayed on Arthur's as he opened him, left him rocking against the bed and his hand as his breaths came in shallow, stuttered bursts.

Arthur looked his fill. He devoured the sight of Merlin coming undone, stored it deep down inside him where he'd never lose it, never forget the way Merlin's eyes sparked and held his own like there was a thread between them keeping them attached.

Merlin only broke eye contact when Arthur pushed inside him. He closed his eyes then, arched his neck and let Arthur slide into him. Once Arthur had settled between his thighs, deep inside him, he ran his fingers over the curve of Merlin's neck to straighten it, smooth it out and try to bring Merlin's gaze back to him. But Merlin kept his eyes squeezed tightly shut. He shook his head and gasped, "I can't. God."

"Don't say that, look at me," Arthur whispered as he touched his fingers to Merlin's cheek. "Look."

Arthur was afraid they'd gone too far, that Merlin was regretting everything. Merlin must have felt Arthur tense up because he wrapped his limbs around Arthur, pulled him tightly to his body. "No, don't think that. It's not regret." Arthur had buried his face in Merlin's neck and he felt the press of Merlin's lips at his temple. "I just don't know how to look at you and not break. You'll fucking blind me, Arthur. I know it."

Arthur let him be, let him cling to him with his eyes shut to the world because he wasn't any better himself. He kept his face pressed against Merlin's neck as he moved in slow, deep strokes. Merlin stayed wrapped around him and they only moved at their hips; a slow, close rolling that brought Arthur in and out of Merlin while not breaking contact anywhere else. Arthur couldn't bear the thought of the feel of Merlin's skin against him disappearing; the coldness that would settle into him without Merlin.

The inside of Merlin's thighs slid along Arthur's hip as his muscles tightened and he arched up into Arthur. The fingers on his left hand dug into Arthur's back as his right slipped between their stomachs and squeezed his cock. "Oh, fuck," he gasped. "Fuck. Arthur, stop. Stop."

Arthur lifted his head and looked down into Merlin's face, cupped his cheek. "Did I hurt you?" he asked. "What?"

"No. God, no," Merlin said as he held Arthur even more tightly. He opened his eyes to look at Arthur and tears spilled out the corners and down into his hair. "I'm so close but I don't want it to be over. You need to stop, could you please just stop?"

Arthur nodded yes, kissed him.

"Just stay inside me and stop," Merlin said as he wrapped both arms around Arthur again. "Just stop for a while."

Arthur laid his head down on the pillow next to Merlin's, breathed in the scent of him. He thought he'd crush Merlin and it was taking all of his will-power not to come himself but he didn't move, wasn't going to move until Merlin asked it of him.

Merlin ran his fingers through Arthur's hair and turned to kiss him. "I want you know," he said, "that no matter what comes after it, what we say, tonight was perfect."

Arthur nodded and kissed Merlin back. Merlin started moving his hips again, rocking up into Arthur, who sighed in relief and started stroking in and out of Merlin once more. He'd been so close before Merlin told him to stop that it only took a few strokes to come, hips jerking and buried deep inside Merlin. He took Merlin's arms from around his neck and slid his fingers through Merlin's as he drew them up onto the pillow over Merlin's head. He watched Merlin's face as he stroked in and out and shivers worked themselves through him. Merlin's face was open, flushed with heat and his eyes were wide as he looked back up at Arthur.

"Touch me," he said, voice low and scratchy. "Bring me off."

Arthur let go of one of Merlin's hands and slid his own down Merlin's arm and over his chest, down his stomach until he could wrap his fingers around Merlin's cock. It was heavy in his hand, hot and hard as he slid his hand up and down, slowly, as he looked at Merlin and nearly begged him to ask for more. He wanted to hear him say, _'faster,'_ and, _'more.'_ Merlin's mouth was open and he was dragging in breaths, swallowing them down, and Arthur leaned down to lick his throat. Merlin turned his face into Arthur's and gasped.

"Fuck." Arthur smiled against the base of Merlin's throat. "You can do better than that."

Arthur lightly bit down on Merlin's Adam's apple before he dragged himself away. Merlin made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat when he felt the rush of air against his skin when Arthur moved away.

"Shh," Arthur whispered as he ran his hands over Merlin's legs, parted them, and slid back down the insides of his thighs. "Let me give you more."

He pulled out of Merlin and Merlin nearly sobbed his name as he reached out to bring Arthur back to him. Arthur hushed him again, kissed the inside of his knee as he took care of the condom, his cock still half hard and wanting Merlin all over again. Merlin practically clawed at Arthur's shoulders when he laid down on his stomach between Merlin's legs and took Merlin's cock in his hand again. He brushed his lips along the length of it and kissed the tip before licking along the underside and taking it in his mouth. Merlin moaned and drew up his knees, curled his toes against Arthur's skin as he swallowed him down. Merlin pulled at him and felt like a bundle of tense, straining limbs; long and lean and everywhere around him.

Arthur rubbed his palm along Merlin's lower belly and told him, "You taste so fucking good."

"Arthur," Merlin groaned as his fingers twisted in Arthur's hair and his hips jerked. Arthur held Merlin's hips down as he came.

When all he could feel were shudders running through Merlin's body, Arthur pulled his mouth off of his cock and laid his head on Merlin's thigh as he kept lazily stroking him. He could feel Merlin's limbs go loose around him as they lost their drawn up tension and collapsed against him, exhausted. Merlin's hand was still in Arthur's hair and was softly carding through the sweaty strands.

Arthur didn't know how long they laid there with only the sound of their breathing to break the silence. Arthur didn't know if he could even move if he wanted to, he felt heavy, like he had sunk into the bed, into Merlin, and there was no way he'd be able to pull himself free.

Arthur almost jumped when Merlin sighed; the sound seemed so loud in the quiet that had settled between them. Merlin dragged his fingers along Arthur's face, let them rest briefly against his lips before he pulled them away completely and started to untangle himself from Arthur. Arthur shivered wherever Merlin touched him as he dragged his limbs away and rolled to his side. Arthur watched Merlin's back as he sat up on the edge of the bed and looked out the window. He moved closer to Merlin and kissed his back, low along his spine. Merlin sighed again and reached back to Arthur, ran gentle fingers along his bare arm.

He wanted to reach out for Merlin and drag him back into the bed beside him when he got up and walked over to the window. He leaned against the frame and the moonlight illuminated his pale, naked skin. Arthur wanted to tell him then that he loved him, loved him in a fierce and wild kind of way, but instead he turned and got out on the other side of the bed. He started to gather his clothes and he had to walk out of the bedroom to the front hallway to get everything. It felt like home walking around naked in Merlin's flat, his bare feet padding along the wood floor. He belonged there. He wanted to build a life up around everything they'd just shared, but it was clear from Merlin's actions just then that he wasn't ready. Fuck, he hadn't even been able to talk about it, how was Arthur supposed to tell him that without his knowing Arthur had moved in and made himself at home, had seeped into the floorboards and was there to stay?

He pulled on his socks as he walked back to the bedroom, hopping on one foot and trying to hold onto his shoes and jumper at the same time. By the time he got back to the bedroom Merlin had pulled on a pair of pyjama bottoms and jumper and was curled up in the window seat. That damn window. Arthur wanted to ask him what he saw when he looked out of it that was so fucking fascinating that it could pull him away from looking at Arthur, from facing him and seeing the truth laid out in front of him. Arthur watched Merlin as he finished getting dressed; the faraway look in his eyes, the one that pained Arthur because he still didn't know how to read it.

"You know, some days I think I love you." Arthur said into the silence, said 'think' when what he really meant was 'I do' and 'always' and 'sorry, I couldn't stop myself from falling' but he didn't want to say it out loud and make Merlin say something in return, something he might not want to hear.

Merlin turned to him then, smiled sadly and said, "I know." And Arthur knew that Merlin knew he was lying.

Merlin turned back to the window and kept his silent watch going. Arthur stayed standing where he was with his jumper in his hands, he'd only gotten as far as his t-shirt and for some reason he just couldn't go any further. There were things he wanted to say, things that hadn't yet come to him but he still hoped they would. Things that would make sense of everything, like magic, but he knew those words would never come; especially not from his mouth.

He turned to leave instead.

He was just about to make his first step out the bedroom door when Merlin's voice stopped him.

"Arthur."

He turned back and looked at Merlin, he didn't say anything but he knew his face was pathetically expectant and hopeful.

"I dream about you at night," Merlin said. He looked at Arthur for just a second then his focus seemed to be pulled down to his toes. He fussed with them, pulled his pyjama bottoms over the tops of them.

"I'm walking through a park. I see you sitting on a bench, all alone. I can't stop staring at you because you're. Well. You're you. So I go sit down beside you and I tell you, right out loud, _'I want to kiss your beautiful mouth,'_ and you smile and let me. I kiss you for ages. Forever. And I want the dream to keep going because I fall in love with you every time. We have no history and it's unfettered and free and it doesn't make me confused or guilty, all it does is make me feel more like myself than I ever have before. I kiss you and fall in love with you and I'm me again."

Merlin looked up at Arthur then and Arthur wanted more than anything to live inside of dreams.

"And then I wake up." Again that sad smile covered Merlin's lips. "I always wake up."

"It sounds like a really nice dream," Arthur said. "Maybe I'll dream the same thing tonight and we'll get stuck there."

"Oh god," Merlin's voice cracked. "I hope so; we'll be stuck and happy and never ever wake up again."

"And we'd be in love," Arthur added.

Merlin nodded, dropped his forehead against the window. "Yes," he whispered. "Always."

Arthur turned and walked out because there wasn't anything left that he could say just then.

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

Arthur walked home, his heart thrumming in his chest. It took everything in him not to turn around and run back to Merlin; to let himself back into his flat, pull him down onto the bed, fall asleep next to him and just fucking ignore the world.

He had no clue how he got back home or even how long it took him but suddenly he was walking up the front steps to his house and unlocking the door. Once he was inside he dropped his keys on the hall table and stood there. He didn't know what to do. There was no way he was falling asleep, he wasn't hungry, he couldn't watch tv, his mind was going a thousand miles a minute and he was numb from head to toe.

"Arthur, is that you?"

He looked up to see Uther standing at the end of the hallway slightly backlit from the dull glow of the tv that must have been on in the lounge.

"Yeah." Arthur looked around, ran his hand through his hair. "It's me."

"It's the middle of the night."

Arthur was quiet for a moment and didn't answer Uther right away.

"Arthur?" Uther said in a quiet voice. "What's wrong?"

Arthur shook his head, opened his mouth to say, _'nothing,'_ but instead said, "I love Merlin." Uther started walking toward him and Arthur took a step back and scrubbed his hands over his face. "I'm fucking in love with him, Dad. Something's wrong with me."

Uther reached out to Arthur and gently squeezed the back of his neck and pulled him to his side in a kind of half hug. "Let's go sit down."

Arthur let Uther lead him down the hallway and to the lounge where he got him settled on the couch. He reached for the remote to mute the tv. Arthur looked over at Uther once he'd sat down beside him.

"I love him and I don't know what to do."

"Being in love will do that to you. I think your mother thought I was quite stupid when we first started seeing one another. I never knew what to do around her, it was like my hands and feet forgot how to work."

"Dad," Arthur shook his head. "This isn't like that. It's not the same. I -"

"Because it's Merlin there's something wrong with you?" Uther interrupted.

"Of course there is."

"Why?"

"For fuck's sake, Dad, I'm in love with my brother's boyfriend. In what universe is that not fucked up?"

"It's not conventional, no, but when have you ever done anything normally?"

"Jesus. You're too damn calm about this. Why are you not yelling at me right now? Where's the disappointment I was hoping for?"

"Arthur, I've been watching you fall in love with that boy for months. This isn't a surprise."

Arthur looked at Uther incredulously. "God. I could shake you right now. Why didn't you stop me? Who the hell are you? You keep messing with my head."

"I know. I know I can't just be your understanding father overnight, I haven't earned that yet, but Arthur, I'm not going to talk you out of something that would make you happy. I don't care what you tell me."

Arthur leaned forward, elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. "I'm miserable, Dad."

Uther set his hand on Arthur's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "I know you are, you're thinking about Henry and the things you think you can't have and you're making yourself crazy. And if I'm not mistaken Merlin is surely doing the same thing."

"It's like I'm going behind Henry's back," Arthur whispered. "The one bloody person that always loved me and I'm doing this to him?"

"Arthur," Uther's voice was sharp, direct. "Henry's dead. He's gone." Arthur leaned into his dad when Uther's voice cracked on the word, 'gone.' "He would never have expected the world to stop turning without him."

"Yeah? Well it should have done. It should have fucking stopped spinning and collapsed in on itself. That's what it should've done." Arthur's voice rose in anger and he got up from the couch. "But instead it just keeps on turning, oblivious to all of us stumbling around on it that were left behind. And then, if that weren't enough, it gives me Merlin. Merlin. This stupid, ridiculous thing that I know in my heart I was meant to find and what is he? My brother's boyfriend. My fucking dead brother's boyfriend."

Uther sat quietly and watched Arthur pace back and forth in front of him. He let him talk himself out until he was stopped in the middle of the floor, worn out and dazed like he was unaware of how he got there.

"Do you know what Henry told me before he first brought Merlin to meet me?" Uther asked into the silence. Arthur shook his head no. "He told me how much I'd love him, he was so nervous about it and it touched me, there was such sweetness in his nervousness. But then he said that he couldn't quite believe Merlin was his, that he was much more suited to you. He said, _'Merlin and Arthur would make sense, but I'm so lucky, Dad, I found him first.'_ "

Arthur sat down on the floor. "He said that?"

"He did. And after I met Merlin, got to know him, I thought there was a lot of truth in what he'd said. But he loved your brother and made him happy."

"And now I'm taking that away from him," Arthur interrupted.

"No, you aren't, you're giving Merlin someone to love again and that would've made Henry happy. Arthur, you can't take away something that is no longer his. Henry's gone and the love they had isn't gone but it needs to be placed somewhere else. It needs to be put away to make room for more."

Arthur didn't know what to say. He wished he could grab onto what his father was saying, the truth of it, but it still tore him up inside. That feeling he had that he was doing more harm than good.

Uther kept his eyes on Arthur as he eventually stood up to go and quietly asked, "Do you really think Merlin was meant to stop loving, or to stop being loved?"

Arthur watched his father walk out of the doorway and up the stairs to his bedroom.

No, Arthur didn't think that. He couldn't imagine it. Merlin was filled to capacity with love. And every piece of him was waiting to be adored, to be loved in return.

Arthur reached for the remote and switched off the tv and spent the rest of what was left of the night staring into the dark hoping for the courage to make a decision.

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

Arthur let a week pass, and then two.

He let Morgana's calls go to voice mail and didn't respond to her texts. He ignored his father's looks that were at times pointed and other times sad and frustrated.

He was waiting for Merlin's call. That's all there was to it. He kept telling himself he needed an okay from Merlin to continue on, to make a decision about what they were because if Merlin didn't even want to fucking talk to him what was he supposed to do?

Finally, a day into the second week of silence, Morgana showed up at his door; angry and wretched and ready to yell at him for hours on end. She threw his jacket at him and pushed him out of the door as she told him he was going to damn well listen to her and man the hell up.

She was terrifying the hell out of him because she was quiet for a really long time as she walked beside him. And she wasn't touching him, not like she usually did. There was no hand tucked into the crook of his arm, no arm around his waist. She walked a step ahead of him, aloof and determined. He realized after a while she was leading him down to the river and he was thankful for it. There they were familiar, comfortable. He could maybe stand to speak out loud if he were there with her.

When they were about a block away from being able to get their first glimpse of the river Morgana suddenly stopped. "What are you two doing, Arthur?" she asked, her voice so filled with heartbreak Arthur had to swallow himself. "God. You stupid, foolish boys."

"I don't know, Morgana. I truly don't."

Morgana sighed, defeated, her anger gone and replaced by disappointed sadness. "Come on then," she said as she took Arthur's arm and led him toward their familiar path along the river.

They walked for what seemed like ages, it was only the fact that he was waiting for Morgana to say her piece that made the time seem to extend beyond reason.

"Tell me the truth, Arthur," Morgana said finally. And Arthur knew she meant all of it, not just bits and pieces.

Arthur looked out toward the river, he didn't know if he could look Morgana in the eye as he said what he needed to say.

"I've treated him badly, I know that."

"Are you talking about Merlin or Henry?"

"Both, I think."

"But Merlin's the one that's _here_ ," Morgana pressed. "He's the one that loves you and is just as foolish as you. He's the one you need to hold onto and fix. God. I could just beat you both, you're so stubborn and unwilling to be happy. All the two of you need to do is take a step toward one another and you won't do it."

"I know," Arthur said. "I know I could be happy with him. Without my knowing he's settled into the center of me and has become this quiet fury of love that has scared me and saved me both. I don't know how to hold onto him, but I know I don't want to let him go. And here I have this person that could make me be what Henry and my father, what everyone wanted me to be, but it's at the cost of my brother. My brother who did nothing but good by me, even after he died because he brought Merlin into my life. And I have my father back, a man I had never known was proud of me until now. I have all these things; my father, my home, my fucking _heart_ , all because Henry died. And now I'm supposed to take them and be happy? I'm supposed to be thankful that my brother had to fucking die to give me a life?"

Arthur had no idea he was yelling at Morgana, that tears were streaming down his face as he paced back and forth in front of her. He was gasping for breath to spit out the words he had to say, the words that wouldn't stop and the things he wished he'd told Merlin that night they slept together. Everything spilled out of him at Morgana's feet and she stood there and let him shout at her, let him rage, all the while waiting patiently and listening to every word he said.

"You know," she said once he took a break to try to draw in breath, "Merlin is going to be so fucked off that you cried in front of me. He wanted to be the one to make you break down and bawl like a little baby, sadistic little bastard."

Arthur looked at her, stunned, the heels of his hands pressed against his face to stop the flow of tears. But then he managed to compute what she'd said and a snotty, half-crazy laugh burst out of his mouth.

"God, you're such a bitch," he said once he stopped laughing. "I'm laying out my pain for you and you make fun of me."

Morgana shrugged and smiled, an unrepentant sort of thing, but then she pulled him into a hug so tight Arthur thought the last of his air was being squeezed out of him.

"Oh, Arthur," she whispered and it sounded so gentle that Arthur dropped his head to her shoulder and let a sob break free. "You scare him too. He's terrified because what he feels for you burns him from the inside out and is everything he wants. Everything. Merlin loves you. It's this crazy, mangled sort of love that makes him feel like he's never felt before, not even with Henry, and that's the guilt that bores into him. I saw him with Henry and they were good, happy, but it was safe and now he's found you and it's a fucking miracle. And yes it's not how either one of you would've chosen, but now you've both found it. It's done. Be happy. Be fucking happy, and don't you dare tell me that Henry wouldn't want that for the both of you. Don't tell me that because it'd be a fucking lie and you both know it. I know you do, I just need you to see it and let go."

Arthur held onto Morgana even more tightly. "God. I fucking want to so badly."

"Then let go, Arthur. Let go and take Merlin with you."

 

  
****~~**~~****   


 

"Merlin, it's me," Arthur said as he knocked on Merlin's door. He'd left Morgana down on the front steps of the building. She'd told him Merlin was home. She'd left him at his flat to go get Arthur and she was determined to wait them both out.

Arthur didn't know what to expect when he knocked on Merlin's door; hesitation, perhaps, or nervous, confused words spoken to each other through a closed door, but what he didn't expect was for the door to be flung open and for Merlin to come crashing through it.

"Arthur," Merlin gasped as he wrapped his arms around Arthur's neck and clung to him. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. I've been horrible but I didn't know what to say to you. I still don't, but I fucking missed you so much."

"I missed you too." Arthur held onto Merlin and the only thing that ran through his mind was that it was right. Everything about them fit and could be amazing and he'd just needed to have Merlin in his arms again to see that. "I was stupid to walk away that night."

"I was stupid to let you."

"And we've made this tragic fucking mess of everything but I'm hoping with all of my fucking heart that we can fix it somehow."

"Oh god," Merlin said into Arthur's neck. "We're a fucking mess from start to finish. We better fix it, no one else would have us."

Arthur laughed and hugged Merlin more tightly. "We're each other's last hope. Sad story, that."

Merlin laughed too as he leaned back from Arthur and took his face in his hands. His thumbs brushed at Arthur's lips. "You're the best last hope I could imagine."

"It's a good thing for me that you've set your expectations so drastically low." Arthur smiled at Merlin and kissed the corner of his lips and the arch of his cheek.

Merlin stepped back out of Arthur's embrace. "Come inside and talk to me. We'll figure this out." He took Arthur's hand and added, "Stay."

Arthur closed his eyes at that last word, the one he'd wanted to hear that night they'd slept together. When he opened them again he looked at Merlin, nodded and smiled.

"Just try to get rid of me now."

 

 ****

~*~ Epilogue ~*~

 

Arthur sat at the kitchen table flipping through a list of recipes Merlin had picked out for him with the added statement that, _'these are so easy to make even a fucking monkey couldn't fuck them up.'_

Clearly Arthur needed to have words with this supposed culinary genius of a monkey because every single one of them looked overly complicated and involved words like 'julienne carrots' and 'filo pastry' and was this monkey fucking Gordon Ramsay or what?

Screw it, he was ordering take away.

His father and Morgana wouldn't expect anything less and Merlin would laugh at him, as he always did. Tosser.

Arthur threw the pages of recipes into their junk drawer and started getting ready for his 3:00 guitar lesson with a kid named David who had more passion than skill, or even basic rhythm, but was a favorite of Arthur's anyway. He couldn't sit still for a minute and didn't want to bother to learn, he only wanted to, _'just get on with it and play already, Arthur.'_ which was so much like the way he'd been with Henry when they were young and Henry had made the mistake of trying to teach him something new.

Thinking about Henry made him smile now. The deep, pulsing ache and emptiness had left him. It hadn't stood a chance against the combined forces of Merlin, Morgana and his father. They'd filled him up and became some sort of dysfunctional family that half the time he wouldn't wish on the world's biggest twat, but they were his. His father had become the master of the over-share, because he never did anything by halves, and for some reason also a huge fan of prolonged-bordering-on-creepy hugs which still threw Arthur off every time it happened to him. Or Merlin. If he thought his father hugging him was off-putting the sight of him hugging Merlin for overly long periods of time was even worse. Merlin knew how much it made him twitch so obviously he'd hug right back and carry on an entire piece of conversation with Uther before letting go of him. It was disturbing is what it was.

Arthur was just waiting for his dad to buy a linen tunic and trousers, a pair of sandals, and some love beads to complete his entire troubling transformation.

If there was one thing Henry wasn't going to get out of being blamed for just because he died it was Uther's hug-based therapy. And Arthur made sure he told him that fact nearly every time he visited the cemetery and had a talk with him. Somehow, even though Henry obviously didn't answer him back, Arthur could imagine his braying mule of a laugh making fun of Arthur for being the one stuck with Uther now. Without fail Arthur would lose his disgruntled pout and would smile instead.

Morgana alternated between being an evil winged creature of the night who stuck her nose into everything he and Merlin did, and being Arthur's sanity and refuge. Even though she'd been Merlin's first and Arthur thought she'd always take his side, in the end, she was surprisingly partial and wise when dishing out advice and comfort when he and Merlin would have a row. But on the other hand she also managed to coo a lot and make sure they were embarrassed to the utmost whenever they'd be ridiculous together in public.

Morgana was a good friend.

And Merlin.

Merlin was just Merlin. The peace he'd never thought he'd find and the love that made him laugh out loud and also kept him held together. He and Merlin had been able to say goodbye to Henry together and to put away their guilt at being left behind. They found happiness despite having lost a person that had held onto their hearts in different, but no less significant, ways. Arthur was able to see what his father and Morgana, and his heart if he'd only had the bollocks to listen to it, had been trying to tell him and Merlin; that Henry would never have condemned them for what they had because in life he'd done nothing but love them and wish the best for the both of them. It wasn't conventional, or the way either one of them would have wished it, but it was okay.

It had to be okay because life without Merlin laughing at him, and sleeping beside him, and loving him like he was a better man than what he was, wasn't a possibility Arthur could have born.

Arthur had just pulled out the sheet music for _White Room_ \- honestly David was a mini, frustrated, twelve year old Clapton at heart - when his phone rang.

"Yeah?"

"So what are Morgana and I going to pick up for dinner on the way home from work?" Arthur could hear the laughter in Merlin's voice.

"There were words like froth and whisk, what the fuck am I supposed to do with that? It's like you're setting me up for failure."

Merlin laughed. "Ah fuck, Morgana'll love this. Those were recipes from that French cooking course she insisted on taking even though she's as tragic in the kitchen as you are."

"You," Arthur said, "are a twat. A massive, _massive_ twat."

"There were like forty-seven steps to each of those recipes, Arthur, and you didn't once get suspicious?"

"But you talked about monkeys and I was determined to prove you wrong. I have conviction, you know."

"Yes, and it's adorable."

"And now you're a condescending twat."

Merlin laughed again and it was a gorgeous sound. "We'll pick up some Italian from that place your dad liked the last time."

"Yeah, a'right." Arthur was still in a bit of a pout.

"You're a glorious mess, Arthur, and I love you madly."

"Now you're just trying to get out of it." Arthur tried to sound pissed but was smiling anyway and he knew Merlin could tell.

"Add it to the list of sexual favors I owe you for all my wrong doings."

"At this point that list is long enough that you'll still be working your way through it when we're a hundred."

"But just imagine how amazing those blow jobs will be if I don't have my dentures in."

"But my cock will have stopped working thirty years prior and it won't matter anyway," Arthur whined.

Merlin laughed and ignored him completely. "Go get ready for David. What's today's musical selection? _Smoke on the Water_?"

"Fuck, I wish. We're still in Clapton heaven over here."

"Does is sound any better?"

"No, and it probably never will but he gets points for trying and being ambitious," Arthur's voice was fond.

"He's a good kid, that one," Merlin said.

"He is."

"So Italian then?"

"Yeah, fine," Arthur laughed. "Make sure you get me -"

"The carbonara."

Arthur rolled his eyes, he didn't know why Merlin even bothered to call. He could answer 99% of his own questions anyway.

"Look, I've gotta go. Rounds. I'll see you at eight."

"See you then."

Merlin paused for a second and when he spoke again his voice was quiet and full. "I love you, Arthur."

Arthur smiled and pressed his fingers to the notes on the sheet music.

"Love you too."

 

 

~ End


End file.
